84: tough measures

There were over five thousand people in Keduo Town. Renn planned to migrate all of them to the Red River Territory, including the over three thousand miners in the mining area; Renn intended to move them as well.

This was the core objective of Renn's southward plundering plan—population.

Up until now, everything had gone according to Renn's plan, and the process had been relatively smooth.

However, the real difficulty was just beginning; forcibly migrating thousands of people in a short period of time was no easy feat.

"Lord, those residents are not cooperating, and the migration progress is very slow."

Having been busy all day, Ross reported the migration situation to Renn with a sense of helplessness.

"On October 1st, a team from Blackstone Fortress will arrive at Keduo Town. Even if I eliminate that team, I can at most block the news from Keduo for another two days. This means that half a month from now, the abnormality here will definitely be discovered by Blackstone Fortress."

"Ross, we have at most half a month, and one day has already passed. Your current progress is not good enough."

Renn did a quick calculation of the time and immediately decided to change Ross's assignment.

"Forget it. I originally wanted you to handle the migration work because you know how to exercise restraint, which could reduce civilian losses. Now it seems I was being too optimistic."

"You and Colt will swap tasks. You will lead the Cavalry Squad to patrol Keduo Town and the mining area to prevent anyone from escaping to leak information. Leave the migration work to Colt and Godo!"

After Renn reshuffled the assignments, the progress of the migration improved visibly. Colt and Godo would not show mercy like Ross did.

Faced with people unwilling to migrate, Colt would first use intimidation. If that didn't work, he would draw blood with his blade. If there was still no effect, he would find the loudest troublemaker and execute them publicly to make an example, forcing the rest to migrate obediently.

On the other side, Godo was even more brutal. After receiving Renn's order, he immediately mobilized all the Kobolds to execute it resolutely. If anyone refused to leave, the Kobolds were made to drag them by force; if they dared to resist, they were killed on the spot.

The bloody methods of Godo and Colt allowed the migration work to proceed rapidly.

Renn selectively ignored the bloodshed during the process.

If these subjects of the Blackstone Territory were not migrated away, they would be enemies and a source of soldiers for the Blackstone Territory in the future. Showing mercy to the enemy was the most useless thing.

After seeing the migration work proceeding smoothly, Renn began another important task: transporting the blackstone ore.

Blackstone was a highly efficient fuel, much stronger than the coal Renn knew of.

Blackstone burned longer and was more durable, emitting even more heat, and it produced no soot. As a fuel, its advantages were extremely prominent.

Most importantly, high-quality blackstone was a transcendent resource. Some special blackstones could reach the Black Iron Rank or even the Bronze Rank. The high temperatures emitted by these transcendent blackstones upon burning could melt transcendent metals, making them a special fuel for forging transcendent equipment, with extremely high value.

Whether it was ordinary blackstone or transcendent blackstone, both were precious resources.

With winter approaching, Renn also hoped the Red River Territory could use blackstone to get through the season. This time, he wanted to move back as much blackstone as possible.

For the same volume, blackstone was much heavier than ordinary stone, making normal transport extremely inconvenient. However, Renn had a spatial ring, which could greatly increase the transport speed.

Renn's spatial ring had a capacity of one hundred cubic meters. One hundred cubic meters of blackstone weighed about five hundred tons, meaning Renn could transport over five hundred tons of blackstone at once.

The Keduo Mining Area had already stored over three thousand tons of blackstone this month. After Renn collected five hundred tons to fill his spatial ring, he rode Reck toward the Red River Territory.

Through Renn's recent continuous feeding of transcendent resources like monster cores, Reck's level had already reached the peak of the Bronze Rank.

However, to take a further step and break through to the Silver Rank was no longer something ordinary monster cores or magic potions could achieve. Reck's level would not be able to increase further in the short term.

Reck, having reached the peak of the Bronze Rank, was much faster than before. He carried Renn across the wilderness like a bolt of white lightning. A journey that would originally take four days by horse could be reached by Reck in less than half a day.

Once Renn reached the territory, he placed the blackstone ore into a warehouse prepared in advance. Fornal had already made preparations on this end.

"Lord, with this blackstone, this winter will be much easier to endure. It's just that it would be better if there were a bit more."

"Don't worry, this is only a small part. There will be more later."

The number of people Renn was migrating this time was too large, so naturally, there was quite a bit of preparatory work to be done.

"I asked you to prepare for receiving the personnel in advance. How are you doing with that?"

"Rest assured, Lord. Johnny has already been leading the engineering team to renovate the four villages to the north and south near Keduo Town for several days. It will be initially completed in another four or five days."

"As soon as the people you mentioned arrive, Lord, they can be settled in Red River Town and the four nearby villages. There's absolutely no problem."

"That's good then!"

After arranging the tasks for Fornal, Renn left the territory again and hurried back to Keduo Town.

In this way, Renn traveled back and forth for three days, transporting all the blackstone mined from the Keduo Mining Area—nearly four thousand tons in total—back to the Red River Territory.

By the time Renn finished transporting the blackstone, Colt and Godo had also prepared the first batch of the migration group. The first group of two thousand people departed from Keduo Town and headed for the Temporary Camp.

The Temporary Camp Renn chose was exactly a day's journey for the migration group from Keduo Town. If it were an elite squad like the Cavalry Squad traveling at full speed, they could reach it in two hours.

But with over three thousand people in the migration group, the movement speed was very slow, and it would take a whole day to reach the Temporary Camp.

Renn planned for these people to rest at the Temporary Camp for one night, after which the Infantry Squad at the Temporary Camp would escort them back to the Red River Territory.

Two hundred-man infantry units would take turns, escorting in rotation to ensure these people could be successfully migrated to the Red River Territory.

Ross, the Cavalry Squad, and Godo's Kobolds remained to garrison Keduo Town.

Renn took the Magic Wolf Knights and Colt's team to escort the migration group north.

They reached the Temporary Camp a day later. After resting for a night, Wayne led the team to escort these people back to Red River Town.

The Temporary Camp was quite far from Red River Town, and the migration group would need to walk for three or four days. However, once they entered the Red River Territory, the danger actually decreased significantly.

The southern wilderness of the Red River Territory had just been cleared, and almost no figures of other races could be seen. With Wayne escorting them, there shouldn't be any problems.

The only thing that troubled Renn was that people frequently broke away from the migration group to try and escape.

Some of these people were discovered and caught by the escorting Cavalry Squad, while others were found by the Wolf Pack roaming the wilderness.

For those who were caught trying to flee, Renn ordered them to be executed immediately as a warning to others. The Wolf Pack on the periphery would also kill those who escaped.

Renn absolutely could not let a single living person escape. If the Blackstone Territory received news that he was attacking Keduo Town, then his operation this time would be half a failure, which was something he absolutely could not accept.

Therefore, anyone who attempted to flee had to die.

After seeing that everyone who tried to escape was killed, the number of people wanting to run away in the migration group decreased significantly later on.

In this manner, Renn's plundering plan was carried out in an orderly fashion.

After the first batch of the migration group reached the Temporary Camp, the second batch of personnel also set out once Renn returned to Keduo Town and rested for a day.

Once this batch of personnel was migrated, the entire Keduo Town was emptied. All personnel were forcibly migrated, and all useful resources in the town were also looted by Renn, packed up, and transported back to Red River Town.

Now, only the three thousand five hundred miners in the mining area remained in Keduo Town to be migrated.

Renn looked at the busy miners, planning the next step of the migration work in his mind.

"Tomorrow is the 29th. Tomorrow, have the miners stop mining and migrate everyone. Move all the supplies from the mine that can be moved, and destroy everything that cannot."