Munitions Empire-Chapter 915 - 838 Land of Soul’s Repose

Chapter 915: 838 Land of Soul’s Repose Chapter 915: 838 Land of Soul’s Repose A train finally came to a halt at the new Fengjiang City station, a special train that used freight carriages.

As it crossed that grand railway bridge, it drew the attention of many, for this train was noticeably longer than the others.

Beyond its length, the train unexpectedly had Qin Country guards on it, but after crossing into the nation’s borders, all of them disembarked and took the connecting train back from Fengjiang.

Within the dimly lit carriage, pairs of frightened eyes gazed at the light streaming through the cracks, unaware of where they had arrived, nor where they were bound.

Everything was foreign and unknown for these beastmen who had lived their whole lives in the desert.

Amidst the cacophony of commands, the carriage doors were yanked open with a clang, bathing the inside with light, causing many beastmen to squint uncontrollably.

They shielded their eyes from the brightness, then gradually adapted to the normal light. Standing before them were beastmen dressed in coarse clothing, seeing these kinfolk eased the tension of those within the carriage somewhat.

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“Disembark! Watch your step! Get off!” reminded the beastmen waiting at the station, flanked by Tang Empire Soldiers armed with assault rifles.

“Where are we?” a beastman, emboldened, asked one who appeared even more dignified than a beastmen priest.

The beastman who had been living in Fengjiang for over a month and had become accustomed to it all replied to his kin with a voice full of vigor: “This place is called Fengjiang… but for you, this might be the… ‘Land of Resting Souls’.”

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The beastmen revered their ancestors and spirits; they did not utter invocations to myriad gods like the old human nobility. They worshipped only one deity, the Orc God who birthed the beastmen race.

For each beastman, the Land of Resting Souls represented peace and beauty, an aspiration for a lifetime.

“Be careful! Do not get near these people! They might carry germs, fleas! Maintain your distance!” a passing human officer cautioned the two conversing beastmen: “Take them to bathe! Make sure they take the de-worming medicine!”

“Follow one after another! Do not attempt anything dangerous!” An officer in the distance kept shouting through a megaphone.

The disembarking beastmen finally got to see just how majestic and impressive the train station they arrived at was, realizing they had reached the place they had dreamt of.

For years, the beastmen had hoped to leave their barren lands behind and conquer a fertile area controlled by humans, an ancestral wish and a cause they had strived for generation after generation.

For centuries, war had never truly ceased, they sent those who couldn’t survive in the desert to the western wall of Qin Country’s border to fight, praying for ultimate victory.

If they failed, they at least reduced their population, allowing the remaining food to sustain the tribe through winter; if they were victorious, they would become unstoppable.

Their most promising assault was ruined by a weapon known as the Shireck Flintlock Gun. This weapon had crushed the beastmen’s great army and finally stripped them of their meager physical superiority.

Before the musket, everyone was equal; lacking medicine, and almost devoid of armor, the beastmen repeatedly suffered dismal defeats.

Sometimes, even they began to doubt whether the eastern offensive held any chance of success.

A year ago, the beastmen assaulting the western wall defense line suddenly discovered that their adversaries possessed even more formidable weapons: the enemy’s firepower was relentless and fierce, the cannons more potent, and tactics had evolved accordingly.

It seemed an even more unlikely feat now to breach the western wall defense. Yet many beastmen, in another manner, and under a different guise, accomplished the grand achievement their forefathers never had.

They were shackled, caged, and transported eastward, passed through the heart of Qin Country, and across Dahua to arrive in Fengjiang.

They traveled farther than they could have imagined, and the world they reached surpassed even the splendor of the resting place in their dreams.

Regrettably, they were shackled, and the cat-eared female beastmen were strung together with a rope.

“An epidemic is out of the question, if they were ill, issues would have arisen in Qin Country or the Dahua Empire,” assured the officer in charge of disease prevention, observing the beastmen prisoners of war forming their own lines: “We have already stockpiled the appropriate medication, my concern is really that their hygiene habits are appalling.”

“`

“If they don’t obey, beat them!” an orc standing by his side said naturally, “Some people do not deserve the grace the Orc God gives them.”

“But that is the grace given to them by His Majesty The Emperor of the Great Tang Empire!” the officer glanced at the orc beside him and reminded.

“Yes, His Majesty The Emperor is the incarnation of the Orc God! He is the deity of the orcs.” The orc immediately bowed slightly and hurriedly explained.

“What can such young children even do? They can’t read… Could it be that those damn Qin Country people are just using them to pad the numbers?” A soldier saw orc children disembarking from the train for the first time and asked his companion standing next to him.

His companion also didn’t know why: “Who knows, maybe they’re being taken to work in garment factories in Chu Country? I’ve heard that some places use children as workers.”

“Don’t speculate wildly! These children are here to placate people’s hearts, making some orcs have a home, which is more effective than finding soldiers to supervise them.” Their conversation was overheard by an officer standing behind, who then explained the reason.

The Tang Country is not planning to kill the donkey after unloading the millstone, some well-behaved orcs will indeed be truly absorbed and accepted. However, this acceptance does not mean that these orcs can reproduce and grow unruly within the Tang Empire.

Tang Mo had already found a good place for these orc tribes, in the future, Tang Mo would turn it into a no-man’s land, where the orcs who converted to the Great Tang Empire could live happily.

Yes, that place is Mirage Country—where goblins live—in the Tang Empire’s planning, goblins simply do not qualify to be neighbors.

As for where these goblins go after losing their homeland, that was not Tang Mo’s concern; he only told them to scram, and where they went was not important.

“Daddy! Daddy! Look! What is that?” An orc child, pushing the shackles on his father’s hand, pointed excitedly at something in the distance.

It was a new skyscraper being built within the Fengjiang City area; the crane was still rotating beside it, its boom operating. The building had not yet been topped out but was already twenty stories tall.

“They may be building a monument to console those souls drifting in the wilderness.” Unlike the orc soldiers captured on the battlefield, this family of orcs was directly caught by Qin Country’s raiding troops.

The task of those Qin Country raiding troops was to sweep through the orc tribes near Iron Fist Fortress and take all the local orcs to the Great Tang Empire.

After learning that the Tang Empire was also willing to accept orc children, such raiding operations became more frequent.

These Qin Country troops generally were the best equipped in the country, having ample ammunition and also using advanced weapons aided by the Tang Country.

With cars and armored vehicles, these raiding teams came and went like the wind, catching orcs off guard and thus making numerous captures. The sudden increase in orc prisoner trade was the best proof.

“That is not a monument! You’ll know soon enough.” The orc overseer in charge of supervising them said with a smile, “Don’t worry, you’ll find out soon enough… because, that building, it’s built by our orc laborers.”

Of course, these newly arrived orc laborers from afar couldn’t see that at this very moment, on that unfinished skyscraper above, there were orcs carrying bags of cement, shuttling along staircases without handrails.

They built bridges and paved roads in Fengjiang, and constructed high-rise buildings here, essentially training their building skills.

Soon, as they learned how to obey management, how to live, how to work, and gained their own work experience, they would be transferred to other areas of the Great Tang Empire, to places in more need of labor.

Five years; the Tang Country gave these orcs five years to prove themselves. If they could prove their worth within five years, they could obtain a new identity.

This was a promise Tang Mo gave to Yue’er, a promise humans gave to the orcs who submitted to them.

Compared to the way the Western world treated Africa, the Tang Empire was ultimately a bit more gentle. But Tang Mo would also not give these orcs the chance to steal a nest, they would be happier than the Africans, but that was all.

Comparatively speaking, the cost of using these orc laborers was extremely low; there was no need to care whether these orcs were willing to work overtime, only that their working hours did not exceed twelve hours within the legal framework of Tang Country.

They did not need salaries; as long as good food was provided, these orcs were already very grateful. Because in the past, they had essentially lived in a state of not being able to eat their fill or wear warm clothing.

In addition, the suitable climate here was better than the areas where the orcs lived before. Moving here into the workers’ dormitories, compared to their previous living conditions, the improvement was countless times better.

Therefore, the orcs coming here felt that this was a place of rest, the final haven for their souls. They weren’t lying; the Tang Country’s methods of exploiting labor were to them nothing less than a breath of fresh air.