At midnight, the blazing bonfire illuminated the dark square.
Tens of thousands of poor people lined up in long lines in the night.
Guard Captain Loren held a long whip with spikes in his hand and said fiercely, "Hand over the coins you received. If anyone dares to hide them, ask the whip in my hand first!"
"I remember it should be twelve silver coins!" Loren sneered.
The poor people present looked at each other in bewilderment. After a while, a poor man in ragged clothes spoke cautiously. "Lord Loren, did you remember it wrong? It should be ten silver coins..."
After the wizards occupied the town, they carried out a purge, hanged a large number of nobles and bullies who committed evil deeds, and distributed most of the confiscated property.
Each poor person received ten silver coins as compensation for being exploited and enslaved by the nobles...
Although wizards have become synonymous with evil due to the church's propaganda, most of the poor people living in poverty still accept the real temptation of money.
"Do you want to fool me?" Loren raised a ferocious smile. He suddenly raised the whip in his hand and lashed at the poor man hard.
A crisp "pop" sound was heard, and the unfortunate poor man screamed and his cheeks swelled up.
"I said twelve, and that's twelve!" Loren snorted coldly and whipped the unfortunate poor man again. He fell to the ground in pain, trembling all over.
Loren stared at the frightened eyes of the other poor people and felt very happy. Those damn wizards looted every noble manor, and his Loren family was no exception.
What was even more incomprehensible to him was that the wizards actually distributed such large amounts of treasure to these untouchables!
Loren believed that there must be some poor people who colluded with the wizards secretly and reported the news to get these rewards. Otherwise, who would complain about having too much money?
In view of this, Loren reported the collusion between these poor people and wizards to the bishop, and obtained the right to punish these poor people and take back the looted wealth. He was even prepared to teach these rebels a lesson, and the extra two silver coins were the punishment!
Under Loren's threat, the subjects who dared not speak out could only hand over their only financial resources.
Those who failed to pay enough would be severely beaten! Paying two more silver coins might not seem like much, but most of the poor were already poor and destitute, and this would undoubtedly cost them their lives...
One of the poor people couldn't even hand over a single silver coin. As the most devout believer of the Lord, he firmly believed that the wizards had bad intentions and must have cast some evil witchcraft on the money, so he didn't even go to collect the compensation...
However, Loren didn't care about all that. He didn't believe that there would be anyone who wouldn't want to give up the silver coins. He unwhipped the whip and started lashing, venting all his anger towards the wizards on these poor people!
I completely forgot that half an hour ago, I was kneeling on the ground begging for forgiveness from the Chief Judge and Her Majesty the Saint...
In just one minute, Loren beat the devout believer to death. Just as he was about to beat him to death to scare the rest of the poor people who wanted to lie, a burst of fierce artillery fire suddenly came from outside the city!
This sound... is it artillery?
Loren shuddered suddenly, and a deep fear rose in his heart, because a few days ago those wizards also used such fierce artillery fire to blast open the sturdy city gate.
But how is this possible?
Didn't those wizards take the airship to attack the kerosene site? They should be fleeing in panic at the moment because of the attack by the Vatican's expeditionary army.
Loren was absolutely unwilling to believe this possibility, but he soon saw hundreds of city guards throwing away their armor and weapons and crawling towards this side.
"Run! It's wizards! The wizards are coming back again!"
Several city guards shouted at the top of their lungs, and were then knocked to the ground by a round of musket fire.
In the reflection of the moonlight and the bonfire, thousands of musketeers like wolves and tigers were charging towards this side in the distance. Loren was frightened and immediately ordered the guards beside him to stop them. He grabbed a warhorse and planned to escape.
The angry poor people were naturally not prepared to watch Loren leave like this, so they rushed over and dragged him off his horse, then beat him up, kicked him, bit him, and scratched him with their nails...
"Get out of my way! You lowly people, when the Chief Judge arrives, you will all be thrown into Purgatory!" Loren shouted in panic, but his guards had already run away. He alone was unable to resist the beating from the 'mob', and was soon silenced under the iron fist of justice.
In a short while, the Musketeers had already rushed to the square where people gathered. The poor people were waiting for the wizards' judgment in panic and fear.
However, after the leading Redel learned what had happened, he directly ordered the silver coins that Loren had confiscated to be redistributed one by one, and the believers who were dying from the whip were also treated.
However, after his physical injuries were healed by magic, this devout believer seemed a little dispirited, as if he had lost his soul.
The poor people who received the coins again had looks of disbelief on their faces, and a vague idea arose in their minds.
It seems that there is nothing wrong under the rule of wizards.
At least no one would want to take away their remaining savings.
After a surprise attack, the Musketeers quickly regained control of the city.
The expeditionary force was busy pursuing, and the defending force left after the capture was very weak, so they suffered almost no casualties.
"Dean Lin En is indeed a master of foresight..." Redel couldn't help but sigh in his heart.
In the noon battle, they lost a lot of artillery and armored vehicles, and had nearly 3,000 wounded soldiers. It was obviously not a suitable move to confront the Vatican's expeditionary force head-on.
But evacuation was also difficult. There were only a hundred or so airships, and it was impossible to take everyone away.
So Lin En proposed to hide the main force outside the city, and then create the illusion that they were going to steal kerosene on an airship, in order to lure away the Vatican's expeditionary force.
When the punitive army leaves and the enemy lets down their guard, they will fight back and even be able to capture the unguarded kerosene city in one fell swoop!
According to Dean Lin En, they used the strategies of "empty city", "attack the enemy and rescue them", "sneak attack" and "luring the tiger away from the mountain"! So many wizards are very curious about what this magic star did before arriving in the wizard land?
Could he be a great lord of the empire? Otherwise, how could he know so many tactical skills?
(End of this chapter)