Chapter 698.2: Follow Me, Go Get Your Guns!
Besides, that system required one prerequisite, the local survivors had to want to save themselves and be willing to help others who suffered like them.
In Port Gallon, they could grab anyone at random, so long as they were barely alive, they would think they were fine. Drag out someone half-dead, and everyone else would think they had nothing to do with it.
Perhaps only by letting them spill some blood would there be even a sliver of hope to end the cycle.
And even then, there was only a tiny chance.
Seeing that Ample Time already had a plan, Old White continued to ask, “So what do you plan to do next?”
Ample Time glanced at the neighboring ships and narrowed his eyes slightly. “There are a few more ships there. After we arm them, I plan to send a team to lead them in an assault on the settlement’s largest prison.”
The Rowell Camp on Blackwater Street.
According to records in one of Sisi’s continuously updated travel logs, that camp had once been a shelter housing several thousand survivors over a century ago. Some locals even believed it was the original predecessor of Port Gallon itself. But whatever it had once been, it had become the private property of the Xilande Empire, managed by the Governor’s Manor.
Aside from Moonfolk persecuted for inexplicable reasons, it held vast numbers of bankrupt debt-slaves and certain prisoners of special status, together accounting for as much as 5% of the entire settlement’s population.
The camp burned by the Order of the White Bear a month earlier had merely been a temporary warehouse for slaves, with lax defenses. Rowell Camp was the true source of the settlement’s slave trade.
Before enforcing New Alliance law, they had to uproot that place, otherwise everything else would be pointless.
And as a symbol of royal authority, capturing Rowell Camp would be extraordinarily important for awakening local resistance.
Old White hesitated before asking, “They haven’t had any training yet. Isn’t this too early for them?”
“If we act now, they’ll only face jailers, and a garrison we’ve already smashed. Wait a few days, and that won’t be the case.” After a pause, Ample Time continued, “Besides, before training, what they need most is confidence. We have to make them realize, their enemies are actually not that formidable!”
...
The freed slaves poured off the ship in a rush. The merchants by the docks watched with longing eyes.
Especially a few big-nosed traders from the West Coast, seeing the New Alliance drive the slaves off the ship, they immediately started shouting in panic, “What are you doing?! Those are my slaves!” a Wislander merchant yelled angrily.
Ample Time, walking down from the pier, happened to see the indignant man. He casually tossed the shackles he had just removed into the merchant’s arms. “Go catch them yourself.”
The shackles thudded against his chest. The Wislander merchant reflexively caught them, then looked up to see New Alliance soldiers dragging crate after crate of weapons from a warehouse, smashing the locks, pulling out rifles, and handing them directly to his slaves.
His face turned ashen, and he nearly spat blood.
He recognized those crates all too well, they were the payment he had delivered to the port warehouse just the day before, in exchange for over 1,000 “livestock.”
Watching those monkeys clutching rifles with undisguised delight, he ground his teeth and swallowed his rage, shrinking back into the crowd without another word.
Facing the many eyes on him, Ample Time cleared his throat, raised both hands, and continued, “This is our conflict with the Empire, it has nothing to do with you. We’ll fight our war, you continue your trade. In fact... from now on, port taxes are cut in half.”
“Of course, the slave trade is finished. We don’t recognize ownership of humans by humans, and we don’t welcome any slave traders here.”
“But if you’re willing to go to Silvermoon Bay and bring back goods we need, we guarantee you’ll make a fortune.”
“We’ll pay in Dinars or silver.”
After saying this, Ample Time instructed players fluent in Federation language to register the identities of everyone passing through the port, then moved on to the next ship.
By the time registration was complete, the slaves flooding into the port had all been armed, forming a force of 2,000.
Most carried bolt-action rifles, only a few held Blade assault rifles or PU-9 submachine guns. Most had no formal training, but their fighting spirit burned like a raging fire.
Beyond the 2,000 of them, even more unarmed people followed behind with clubs and fish-knives, murderous intent written all over them.
Except for the elderly, women, and children, almost everyone stepped forward, bottling up their fury and preparing to free their comrades and families.
Right now, they were bound together by sheer willpower alone. Even a moment’s hesitation could snap that taut rope.
Seeing Laxi approach him, clutching a rifle, face flushed red from rapid breathing, Ample Time patted his shoulder. “No need to be afraid. We’ll fight alongside you.”
He then shouted loudly toward Peepo and the 100-odd fully equipped Burning Corps brothers standing ready.
“Now! Cover the Avengers as we advance on Rowell Camp! Go free those imprisoned slaves!”
The rifle-bearing slaves roared to the heavens. “ORAAA”
...
At noon, with a single shell tearing through the silence, the Burning Corps’ second phase of the offensive officially began, two full days ahead of schedule.
At present, the areas under Burning Corps control were concentrated around the port and Tulip Street, separated from the rest of the city by a ring road called Knight’s Way, with the Governor’s Manor to the northwest serving as a firepower anchor overseeing the northern districts of Gallon Port.
In effect, the New Alliance-controlled area resembled an irregular pentagon, with Rowell Camp lying to its northeast.
If Rowell Camp could be taken, the New Alliance’s effective control would extend at least another kilometer northeastward, forming a pincer with the Governor’s Manor to the northwest and drawing a control line on the map parallel to the coastline.
At that very moment, Commander Abhinan, holed up in the slums, had no idea of the New Alliance’s intentions. He was still trying to scrape together his remaining troops and freshly conscripted men to plan a counterattack, hoping to rescue the governor and the lords living on Tulip Street.
If he wanted to survive, it was his only option.
Just then, a mortar shell suddenly whistled down onto the newly built defensive line.
With a thunderous blast, the sandbag wall piled in the middle of the street was instantly blown apart, along with several Imperial soldiers crouched behind it.
Before the unit guarding the street could react, bullets came screaming in with the din of gunfire, followed by an earth-shaking roar of killing cries from the other end of the street.
“Kill them!”
“I’ll fight you to the death!”
“Aaaargh!”
