ATPnovel Chapter 64 Damn, everything finally makes sense!
Chapter 64 Damn, everything finally makes sense!
Chapter 64 Damn, it all finally makes sense!
After bringing the bound zombies back, Rock didn't rush to study them. Instead, he checked his battle results first.
[Congratulations, player! You have achieved a glorious victory in the previous battle! You have been awarded 1,000 taels of silver and a random two-star unit!]
[You and your troops have gained a total of 300 experience points!]
Well, the battle results were just average. After all, these zombies had a low experience level, and dealing with them wasn't difficult for me.
Rock now strongly suspects that his system's assessment of combat experience is likely based on some kind of enemy combat strength value, since he usually gains far more experience fighting bandits than zombies.
I don't know how much experience I can gain from fighting government soldiers, or whether it will be more than that from bandits.
Thinking of this, Rock suddenly felt an itch to get his hands dirty. He took several deep breaths to suppress the urge to go and cause trouble for the Qing soldiers.
There is also a two-star unit. Although Rock felt that two-star units were no longer very useful to him, he still clicked to unlock it.
[Congratulations, player! You have obtained a two-star unit: War Dog (from Rome II: Total War)]
This unit is equipped with: large hunting dogs and a beast-taming whip. Recruitment price: 30 taels of silver per person or 4000 taels of silver per person.
Team (160 people), occupies a population of 1 person per team.
Ah, what kind of unit is this?
When Rock first saw the Warhound, his first thought was of the World Eater Legion before Angron's arrival, but then he immediately realized that he couldn't possibly draw this unit.
After all, Total War 40k hasn't been released yet. Whenever he thinks about this, he can't help but feel regretful and lament that he transmigrated too early!
Then, when he saw what the unit looked like and heard that the unit came from Total War: Rome, he finally managed to match the unit with a strange unit in his mind.
This unit is considered one of the more abstract units in Total War: Rome. He wasn't very clear on how to use it specifically because he had never used this unit in the game before.
This unit consisted of a group of almost unarmed Roman animal trainers with a large dog. In battle, they would unleash the dog to bite people, and the core combat power of the entire unit was almost entirely contained in that dog.
"But I must say, this type of soldier seems quite useful to me right now. These hunting dogs seem to be excellent at both tracking and guard duty!"
After thinking about it, Rock suddenly realized the purpose of this type of soldier: wasn't this just a ready-made military dog?
It's important to understand that even in modern warfare, military dogs play a crucial role, let alone now.
Simply by taking a few dogs with him when hunting, his soldiers can be more efficient at hunting. Not to mention that he has always been worried about the lack of professional sentries, but now, professional sentries have arrived!
He immediately recruited ten war dogs for himself, and then promptly assigned these war dogs and Cossack cavalry to be responsible for daily patrols.
"By the way, I wonder if there are any war eagles or similar things in Total War. If we could collect both war dogs and war eagles, then we would have real eagles and hounds."
Rock muttered a couple of things casually, then suddenly laughed.
Just then, several cavalrymen rushed over to report a crucial piece of information to Rock.
"Reporting, Commander, we have completed our tracking mission!"
Rock was taken aback at first, then suddenly remembered that he had indeed ordered several cavalrymen to follow the trail of the undead in reverse during the battle.
"How's it going? Have you tracked down where those zombies came from?"
"Yes, Commander, we've found it!"
Several cavalrymen quickly spread out a map, then pointed to it and said to Rock, "General, according to our tracking, these zombies all came from Wugoutou, which happens to be the gold mine controlled by several major bandits. In addition, there are also gold mines controlled and strictly sealed by the Qing government in this area!"
"It's strange, really. These zombies did emerge from the gold mine. Who knows, maybe these zombies are actually the dead miners?"
Okay, okay, that matches up now!
Rock had been wondering why large numbers of zombies would inexplicably spawn in this place, since the corpses couldn't just appear out of thin air!
He had even worried that a subspace portal might suddenly appear in his area, causing all sorts of plague-infested zombies and the like to emerge from it. But it seems he was overthinking it; the zombies were clearly caused by human intervention.
Recalling the severely worn hands and feet of those zombies, Rock shook his head.
"Something's not right. These zombies can't just be dead miners. I strongly suspect that the local mining authorities are driving a large number of zombies to dig for gold!"
"Otherwise, even if normal miners wear down their hands and feet, they will at most develop a thick layer of calluses; they would never wear their hands and feet down to the point where the bones are exposed."
"Only tireless zombies, but lacking much healing ability, could do this. And these zombies might just become useless, which is why they were simply eliminated as miners!"
Thinking this, Rock's eyes grew even brighter.
He had been puzzled before. Theoretically speaking, if he could realize that these tireless zombies who could run around everywhere were practically perpetual motion machines and high-quality labor, how could others not realize it?
Perhaps those people didn't have as much knowledge of physics as he did, but when it came to exploiting labor, Rock was far superior to them.
How could this socially immature man, who had transmigrated from modern society and had never seen the wickedness of the world, compare to a feudal slave owner with rich experience in exploitation?
It seems that someone has probably already figured out how to utilize the zombies' labor force, but they just haven't discovered it yet!
After carefully examining the map, Rock nodded, realizing that many things seemed to become clear!
For example, why were those bandits able to get a share of the gold, even if it was just placer gold flowing out of a nearby ditch? And why was the gold mine there still in operation even though Rock had never heard of a large number of miners nearby?
He didn't believe in secret mining or anything like that, because it was impossible for these miners to work in the mine from start to finish without eating anything.
The number of laborers needed to mine gold is by no means small, but after all this time, Rock has only heard that bandits stationed near the gold mine are consuming food, and he has never seen anyone transport large quantities of food to feed the laborers!
Matching all of this with the wear and tear marks on the zombies makes perfect sense. It turns out that the Qing government, or rather certain official forces of the Qing government, has been using zombies as labor to mine gold!
"By the way, could you find out for me if the gold mines in this area are state-run?"
"I remember there are quite a few gold mines near Kaiyuan City, but a significant portion of them seem to be under government closure and have not yet been mined!"
Recalling the news he had heard some time ago, Rock knew that although there were many gold mines near Kaiyuan City, the Qing government was mainly busy mining the gold mines near Chaishibao, and secondly Miaoling.
As for the remaining small gold mines, the Qing government did not have time to mine them yet, so it simply sent some local garrisons to seal off the area and strictly prohibited private mining.
In fact, it is said that in previous years, Qing soldiers killed many people here for trying to stop people from mining gold privately!
If Rock remembers correctly, the gold mines in Wugoutou were not among those officially designated for mining by the Qing government. Therefore, he strongly suspects that the people secretly mining gold here may have official connections, but they are not mining on the orders of the imperial court!
Not long after Rock's cavalry went out, they found out about the gold mines there.
Sure enough, theoretically speaking, the gold mine in Wugoutou should not be mined by anyone, but judging from the current situation, there should be people driving zombies to mine the gold.
"By the way, I remember there used to be a lot of people being bought and sold in this area. Some bandits even went out of their way to rob migrants from Northeast China. I now seriously suspect that these migrants might have been sold by bandits to work in that gold mine!"
"Moreover, compared to the displaced people who need to eat, get tired, and are difficult to manage, there's no doubt that these guys would be much more obedient if they became zombies. Especially if they could find a mage who knows the art of corpse manipulation, then this labor force could be fully utilized!"
After putting everything together, Rock suddenly realized what was going on, and his face immediately darkened.
No wonder! No wonder people are always being kidnapped by bandits and their whereabouts are unknown, and a large number of refugees are being taken away by these bandits!
He was initially puzzled because there weren't many landlords outside the Great Wall, and the number of large landlords like those in Jiangnan was even smaller.
In this situation, even if there were landlords, they would not have needed to keep such a large number of slaves, and there would be no need for them to secretly hide serfs.
Now, he finally understood that the migrants who were sold probably didn't become serfs privately owned by some big landowner, but were directly killed and turned into living corpses to continue serving in the gold mines.
It was precisely because the gold mine used zombies as its main workforce that there was no large flow of people or demand for supplies, which allowed it to secretly keep the mining operation a secret from the outside world, keeping most people unaware of its progress!