When the Saint comes, she does not collect food

#199 - Just meetings, nothing else

Taking large strides across the long bridge made of rafts, they reached the dock and switched to horses.

With a flick of the reins, Horn, whose horsemanship was already decent, led Bursak and Jeschka's group towards the small town on Autumn Dusk Island.

According to the Child Soldiers scouts who had explored the entire island, Autumn Dusk Island was an oval-shaped island running from north to south, narrow at both ends and wide in the middle.

It was about 20 kilometers from south to north and about 10 kilometers from east to west at its widest point, with a total area of no more than 110 square kilometers.

According to that Child Soldier, in the northern part of the island, just below that long bridge, there was actually a land bridge formed of solid rock and soil.

As for why the people of the original Eyre Empire didn't walk directly across the land bridge but instead built a high bridge on it, it was probably because the Roan Dam hadn't been built at the time, and the lake water would flood every year.

When the Roan Dam was built and the water no longer rose, the river mouth of the Black Bone Swamp was blocked by earthquakes and landslides, rendering it useless.

From the dock to the town, Horn's horse's hooves always attracted waves and greetings from the displaced people.

"Good noon, Your Grace."

"Good noon!"

"Good noon, Holy Grandson."

"Good noon, keep an eye on the children, don't let them fall behind."

Waving to the displaced people, Horn pulled on the reins and rode his horse towards the nameless town.

By the time he reached the opposite bank of the river from the nameless town, the cold rain of early winter had finally stopped.

In the course of the morning, nearly a thousand displaced people had come to the island, and more would follow as the pontoon bridge gradually stabilized.

For these first batch of displaced people to arrive on the island, Horn's task for them was to clear a habitable area in the ruins and collect usable building materials.

Horn hadn't had time to enter this town yet, but through Shiloh's mechanical theater, he already had a rough understanding of the entire town.

Unlike traditional towns, this town was a ruin within a ruin, a town within ruins.

On its outermost periphery, in the overgrown wilderness, there were still a large number of broken walls and ruins from the ancient Eyre Empire period, as well as a small number of villas and churches.

Slightly closer, the architecture of the beastmen and the architecture of the Eyre people reflected each other.

However, the beastmen's buildings were mostly jagged and relatively rough, while the pillars and walls of the Eyre people were softer, filled with herringbone and wave-like carvings.

Closer still, near the small river in front of the Mechanical Palace, was the real artisan town, built by the artisans of the later Holy Eyre Empire, but from the shrines and cross-shaped windows, it was clear that it came from the hands of modern artisans.

The Mechanical Palace was located on a hill at the northern end of the town, facing south, with a clear view of the entire town.

Leading his horse up the slope, Horn stood at the headless rooster statue and handed the reins to the guard watching the gate.

"Has everyone arrived?" Stepping into the dressing room of the side hall, Horn took off his cloak, which was wet with rain.

Duvaron's calm, almost cold voice came from the side: "They've all arrived. This is the first imperial council since arriving on the island. They all arrived early, some even waited since early this morning."

Taking a warm and comfortable leather robe from the hook, Horn put his arms into the sleeves: "What about Shiloh? Is she up yet?"

"Lady Shiloh has not yet risen."

"She said she would easily change her routine," Horn said with a smile and a curse, "Then leave her alone, let's go to the meeting first."

When Horn said he was going to a meeting, he really meant going to a meeting, nothing more.

Because the main hall was where Shiloh usually slept, and there were also important research instruments there, Horn and his group were all rough people, and it would be over if they broke anything.

Walking to an empty room on the second floor of the side hall, the original long table with a missing leg was placed in the center of the room.

Someone had even brought the dried dog head specimen from the Stag Room of the Papal Palace in Gulag and hung it directly on the wall.

This gave the originally solemn conference hall a bit of the shadow of fighting.

Back then, Tonley and Madelaine fought at the table before the Holy See, their faces bruised and swollen as if it had happened not long ago...

No, that incident happened just the month before last, indeed not long ago.

Hopefully, the people in this conference room won't pay homage to the legendary Old Tonley in the future.

Taking a deep breath, Horn stepped into the conference room, and the key ministers of the Papal State, who were gathered around the long table, stood up to greet him.

These included Madelaine, Chilvis, Jeschka, and several elders such as Chap and Thomas, as well as the thief locksmith, Haymerton.

"Alright, sit down, do you all know why I called you here?"

"Huh?"

Looking at the innocent eyes of this group of people, even more pure than Ding Zhen, Horn knew that they hadn't read the meeting notice that he had asked them to circulate.

It was only a few hundred words, and Horn had even assigned Child Soldiers as readers for those who were illiterate, but they didn't prepare at all.

Looking at these crooked bishops and elders, their spirits were high, but they had no proper demeanor at all. Some were picking their noses and wiping them on the vases, and others were taking off their shoes and putting them on the table.

This wasn't a top-level meeting of a faction at all, it was simply a group of old men in the village gossiping during the winter.

The people present were either farmers or beggars. It was too difficult for them to cultivate good habits and handle affairs normally.

But the group in front of him were already the heroes among the trustworthy displaced people.

"Where's that meeting notice I had?"

Looking at the white paper in his hand with a large stain of yellow marks, Horn numbly turned his head to look at Madelaine.

Madelaine scratched his head: "Too many words, I fell asleep while reading it."

Putting down the white paper in his hand, Horn looked at them with an icy voice: "If you haven't read it, I'll tell you.

This meeting is about the arrangements and planning for a series of military, administrative, and economic tasks for the Salvation Army in the near future.

I originally wanted to discuss it with you, but now I don't think there's any need for that."

Those high-ranking officials who were either lying down or leaning back sheepishly put their feet back on the chairs.

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"Then, let's start directly." Horn took out a small notebook from his clothes, "We have six main things, let's talk about them one by one.

The first thing is food.

We need to control the entire salted fish production process and collect enough meat before the snow falls. The problem we face is that there is not enough salt, and the reason there is not enough salt is because there is not enough brine.

So we need to use star-forged gears to make a water pump to meet the need for rapid accumulation of salt.

The second thing is clothing.

Winter is coming soon, and our believers need a lot of clothing to get through the winter. The cloth we brought is not enough for everyone, so we need to increase income and reduce expenditure, and carefully plan.

The third thing is housing.

I mentioned the cloth problem earlier, which leads to the problem of building warm residences. The town in front of the Mechanical Palace is good, and there are many usable building materials, enough for us to use.

But we still need to build mortar workshops to make adhesives and allocate a few gears as cranes to build houses.

The fourth thing is ideological education.

Retrain the officers, legion commanders, and responsible personnel in our Salvation Army, and quickly train a group of accompanying pastors and basic administrative personnel.

The fifth thing is military reorganization.

Establish a formation of more than one legion within the Salvation Army, a total of four thousand people, called a warband.

During this period, we need to select suitable soldiers to enter the warband, and we also need to write a code of conduct. The location for the warband's training will be in an abandoned Eyre military camp in the south of the island.

The sixth thing is weapons and equipment.

This includes the construction of the orichalcum workshop, the improvement of orichalcum manufacturing, the improvement of clockwork guns, and the standardization of weapon workshops.

There are also some scattered small things, we'll talk about them when we encounter them, I won't report them one by one."

Looking at those bishops and elders whose heads were constantly shaking, as if their heads didn't belong to them, Horn didn't continue to correct the atmosphere.

He snapped his fingers at Bursak, and Bursak immediately handed a stack of white paper to Horn.

You should know that Bursak is also semi-literate, but he has been diligently self-studying all the way, and his current level is much higher than these high-ranking officials present.

Distributing the stack of white paper one by one, Horn crossed his hands on the table: "This is my three-day schedule. I will visit you all in three days to discuss these issues in detail.

In the future, we will have a routine imperial council every ten days to report on the work of the past ten days and formulate plans for the next ten days. This rule will be officially implemented from next month."

Horn stood up and looked around the Stag Room:

"From today to the end of the month, there are still five days. In these five days, in addition to accepting my interviews, there is one important thing, starting this afternoon."

"Huh?" Everyone raised their heads as if waking from a dream.

"What's the matter?" Madelaine asked sleepily, "Your Grace, tell me earlier, I'm still waiting to eat."

………………

"Left, right, left! Left, right, left! Shout louder, haven't you eaten?" Haktuto slammed a stick hard on the butt of Archbishop Madelaine, who was running, drawing out a Tom-like "Ohohoho" scream.

On the other side of the open space, the elders led by Thomas were standing with sweat on their foreheads. They had a bowl of water on their heads, and wooden chips were clipped between their arms and bodies.

Several elders were even sitting stiffly and upright in their chairs, but if there was any movement, the moving part would be greeted with a burst of thin stick strikes.

Standing on the second floor of the main hall, watching the training of the bishops and elders, Horn shook his head and muttered: "That's more like it, I hope it will be a little better after these five days of military training."

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