Chapter 672 Workers Armed

Chapter 673 Workers’ Arms

A band of bandits appeared near Tarnovsk Mountain.

It is said to be composed of some Carpathians and Bulgarian mercenaries who were exiled to Austria, and has caused several cases in the town of Chebinia and other places.

Well, the news was published by "Małopolska Izvestia". As for whether these things are true, people usually would rather believe it than believe it.

As a result, half of the residents of Krakow were so nervous that they stayed behind closed doors before it got dark.

Wumyan Mining Company did not take it seriously at first, until three French technicians of the company were robbed and killed on their way back to their dormitories.

The company manager Xianlovic hurriedly led people to the site of the incident, but only saw a few large pools of blood and the three technicians' empty wallets with their names embroidered on them.

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This situation is very serious. You must know that there are only 15 French technicians in the silver mine. Without any one of them, the steam engine in the mine may become unusable due to malfunction.

Of course, only Captain Ribel knew that these three people were secretly sent back to France by his men, and that what was on the ground was just chicken blood.

After that, the gangs became more and more arrogant, carrying out open robberies almost every day. They even attacked a warehouse of the Wumyan Mining Company, stole the property inside, and then burned it down.

At the company's high-level meeting, Shenlovic shouted with a dark face to the tall man standing in front of him: "Mr. Makawsky, those gangsters burned down Ursuha's warehouse and walked away! In the warehouse The guards didn’t even offer any resistance!”

Makawski lowered his head and said with great grievance: "Mr. General Manager, sixty or seventy gangsters came that day, and all of them were armed with flintlock rifles. At that time, there were only 11 guards in the warehouse. If they did not withdraw, If we leave, it will be burned to ashes together with the warehouse."

"Your patrol has more than 300 people, but you still can't deal with those gangsters?"

A place like the silver mine naturally has its own paramilitary protection, and Makawsky is the captain of the silver mine patrol.

"Yes, sir, there are hundreds of policemen on Tarnovsk Mountain. The Krakow garrison is not far away as well." Makawsky defended, "But the mine is 40 miles wide, plus the nearby There are too many places to defend in several towns.

"I heard that there are more than 150 gangsters in that group, and the patrol team's current strength alone cannot prevent them at all."

Next to him, a half-white-haired company director said: "Mr. Captain, how many people do you think the patrol team needs to expand to be able to effectively resist the gangs?"

Makawsky pondered for a moment and said: "At least 1,000 people, Baron Kischkov. And everyone must be equipped with a flintlock."

Although the gang only has 150 people, their whereabouts are erratic. The patrol team must divide its forces to guard all key locations in the mine in order to barely ensure the safety of the mine.

Depue spoke at the right time: "It will cost at least 800,000 zlotys to set up a standing patrol team of 1,000 people."

Sure enough, all the board members shook their heads when they heard such a large amount.

In the end, the board of directors only gave Makawski the authority to add 150 patrol members and asked the garrison in Krakow to come to help suppress the bandits.

However, just five days later, something more serious happened.

Mr. Depue, the second manager of the company, who came to enforce the rights of the company's shareholders on behalf of France, and his assistant, coachman, and maid were all kidnapped by the gang.

The kidnappers demanded a ransom of 400,000 zlotys, otherwise they would break the deal.

The entire Wumiyang Mining Company suddenly panicked.

When a French technician was killed before, the French ambassador sent someone to lodge a protest. Now, something happened to a senior manager, which may even cause a diplomatic dispute!

The company's board of directors took only half an afternoon to make a decision - to withdraw money from the company's account and redeem Mr. Depue.

400,000 zlotys is more than 600,000 francs - fortunately it is in a silver mine, otherwise, given Poland's difficult financial situation, other places may not be able to get it.

The gangsters actually kept their word. After receiving the ransom, they immediately released Depue, his assistant, and the coachman, but they left the poor maid behind.

Senior executives of the mining company, as well as officials from Karakov, came to Depue's home to express their condolences. The villa was packed with people.

However, Depue did not feel happy about surviving the disaster. Instead, he looked at Schillovich and other company executives with a gloomy face, and said viciously: "If you were willing to spend that money to expand the patrol team, Denise wouldn't do it either." Will fall into the hands of those devils!

"You must rescue her, otherwise I will definitely accuse Mr. Minister!"

Xianlovic said cautiously: "Mr. Depue, you are just a servant, you don't have to..."

"She's more than just a servant!" Depue yelled, "I want her alive!"

Everyone in the room suddenly realized that the relationship between this maid and him was probably unusual.

Under intense pressure from the kidnapping, Umiyan Mining Company finally agreed to expand the patrol to 650 people.

But a full week passed, and there was still no news from Miss Denise. Instead, the gang committed another robbery in Chebiniya town.

Depue was furious.

He went directly to the Krakow Municipal Commissioner and asked him to recruit mercenaries to launch an encirclement and suppression campaign against the gangs. As for the cost, he can pay more than half.

Well, actually, it was paid from the previous 400,000 zlotys ransom.

The Krakow City Hall was also very troubled by the gang. After all, it was their jurisdiction. If they continued to make trouble like this, they would definitely not be able to vote in the next election.

It happened that someone was willing to pay at this time, so they readily agreed.

In the end, the Krakow City Hall also took out 150,000 zlotys, plus Depue's money, a total of 450,000, to recruit mercenaries.

On the other hand, Depue's request for all silver miners to undergo military training was also successfully passed by the board of directors.

Of course, the main reason was that Depue said that he could get 2,000 cheap flintlock rifles from France, and he would bear half of the cost.

All the company executives saw that he was crazy, who dared to raise any objections?

The company quickly organized all the miners, including residents of several surrounding towns - their livelihoods were mostly related to the mines, so they cooperated with the requirements of the mining company - a total of more than 4,000 young and middle-aged people, who would undergo military training once a week for 6 hours each time.

This amount of training may not seem like much, but in fact, except for the big countries like Britain, France, Prussia and Austria, the European armies only train 3 to 5 days a month.

And after these miners and townspeople have completed basic training, they can also be sent to fight bandits in actual combat - they certainly won't see the bandits, because they are all pretending to be people from the intelligence agency, but at least they can practice formations in the wild environment and get familiar with the officers' orders.