Chapter 212: Prison

“What’s going on?” Johnson looked at the other soldiers in surprise. Next to him, aside from the Barbarians who were still standing, all the human Soldiers had collapsed to the ground. They were soaking wet as if just fished out of water, gasping for breath heavily.

“Do new recruits these days have such high awareness?” Constable Harrison widened his eyes and said.

He and Aydin had always served as new recruit trainers. These new recruits were initially trained by him. When they first joined, they were the kind who only trained properly when beaten, scolded, or whipped. If you took your eyes off them for a moment, they would slack off. Why had they all changed their nature today, working so desperately? Was it because the Lord was present?

Alright, you shameless bunch. You haven’t even completed new recruit training yet, but you’ve already learned how to kiss up to the Lord. Harrison’s eyes swept back and forth. If only he had half the cleverness of these Soldiers back then, he wouldn’t have been kicked out of the Silver Eagle Legion. It seemed he needed to learn a bit too in the future, to please the Lord comfortably and get himself a noble title.

“In the future, arrange for someone to be here during training to remind them, so those Soldiers don’t get injured,” Su Lun said somewhat guiltily. “Have them carried to the barracks.”

Su Lun had already inspected the barracks in the military after they were built. They had attributes like restoring stamina, being clean and tidy, and allowing peaceful sleep, and there were no weird attributes like passionate camaraderie.

The Training Addiction attribute alone might easily cause those Soldiers to get injured during training, but when paired with the barracks’ attributes, the two complemented each other perfectly. From now on, there was no need to worry about any Soldier slacking off during training.

A group of exhausted Soldiers were carried to the barracks and quickly fell asleep. By the time they woke up, they had mostly recovered. After upgrading the Military Camp and Training Ground, Su Lun planned to upgrade his own training ground once more.

His training ground was specifically designed to train the dodge talent. After such a long time training, he had mastered one Tumble Dodge. As for the remaining dodge specialties, he only had some ideas; to master them, he needed to continue with long-term training.

Bringing the craftsmen to his training ground, he proceeded with the upgrade and renovation. Su Lun’s training ground had a complex structure, so the upgrade was somewhat slow. Completing the upgrade would take at least two days. After watching for a while, Su Lun left; he didn’t plan to wait there the whole time.

When Su Lun left, the population of Zhenbei City had already exceeded fifteen thousand people. Later, three thousand were relocated to Mirror Lake City. However, due to the caravan manager Ji En continuously spending money to attract people during this period, Zhenbei City’s population hadn’t decreased but had actually increased quite a bit.

Now, the minor lords in the Northern Provinces all regarded Ji En as a wealth god. After all, from those lords’ perspectives, getting rid of the Refugees in their territories who affected stability and harmony, while also making a huge profit, why wouldn’t they do it?

During this period, Zhenbei City’s population had reached seventeen thousand. The residential areas in Zhenbei City were being constructed urgently. It could be said that aside from Su Lun, almost no one in Zhenbei City was idle. Even those who violated Zhenbei City’s urban appearance and sanitation management regulations weren’t thrown into Prison; instead, they were made to work wearing shackles.

Housing for Refugees was easy to solve. If necessary, they could first build some large dormitory-style barracks, managing men and women separately. Food was also relatively plentiful in Zhenbei City. With housing and food, those Refugees quickly stabilized. The settled Refugees were assigned to work on various construction sites. What Zhenbei City lacked now were low-level officials.

Although low-level officials didn’t hold high positions, many policies in Zhenbei City required them to implement, so their power was still considerable. This inevitably led to some abuse of power and bribery. Additionally, some low-level officials had too little professional knowledge and could only manage barely.

Although Zhenbei City now had an elementary academy to train officials, cultivating even a low-level official with some basic knowledge took time. Illiteracy was rampant in this era. The growth rate of low-level officials couldn’t keep up with the population increase.

Supervising low-level officials was very difficult. In ancient China, there was a saying that the king’s power did not extend below the county level, meaning the dynasty’s authority only reached the county level. Low-level officials were controlled by local gentry, clans, village elders, etc. This situation persisted even into modern times with many remnants.

In his previous life, Su Lun grew up in a rural area during his childhood. He had seen the situation of those low-level officials. To put it bluntly, in rural areas before two thousand years ago, low-level officials were almost like gangsters. Only later, with developed information and strict supervision, did things slowly improve.

Su Lun had no immediate solution for these issues. A shortage of teachers meant building more schools was useless. However, for situations like abuse of power, favoritism, fraud, and bribery, Su Lun had many methods.

He had built a Prison before, and its effects were very good, but it hadn’t been used on those low-level officials. However, after such misconduct occurred again, he planned to make visiting the Prison the first stop for officials upon taking office. To enhance the effect, Su Lun also planned to upgrade the Prison. The Prison’s previous effects were good, but wouldn’t it be better to strengthen them?

Since he had thought of it, he decided to act. Early the next morning, Su Lun set aside Chris and Heatherway, who were wrapped around his body, stepped over Angela and Annie sleeping soundly nearby, and wobbling like a pendulum, went to the adjacent bathroom to wash up.

After a simple breakfast, Su Lun gathered a group of craftsmen and headed towards the Prison. At that time, the Prison in Zhenbei City didn’t hold many people, and basically all were taken out for compulsory labor. The Prison didn’t keep idle people. Staying in Prison not only required you to earn money to pay for food, but you also had to pay rent for your Prison cell.

Arriving at the Prison, Aboyo, the warden appointed by Su Lun, hurried to greet him.

“How many prisoners are in the Prison?” Su Lun asked directly.

“My Lord, there are fifty-three people in the Prison. Among them, eleven are serious offenders, and forty-two are minor offenders,” Aboyo replied respectfully.

“What crimes did the serious offenders commit?”

“Robbery, murder, violent resistance against the law.”

“Send them directly to the mines to dig for twenty years. If they survive, release them,” Su Lun directly decided their futures. “Send the remaining minor offenders to work on construction sites.”

“I will be upgrading the Prison during this time. The Prison staff should go guard those criminals. Empty the Prison.”

“As you command, my Lord.” Aboyo nodded and immediately had the prison Guards bring everyone out.

After everyone evacuated, Su Lun began leading the craftsmen in upgrading and renovating the Prison. Combining myths from his previous life and some legends from this world about the River Styx, the God of Death, and the Abyss, Su Lun started adding some elements to the Prison.

For example, the main gate of the Prison was built like the Gate of Hell. Inside the Prison, various legendary fierce beasts were carved, making them look ferocious and terrifying. Additionally, the corridor leading into the Prison was specially painted with scenes of the God of Death judging souls. The innocent could continue living in the City of the Dead, while the guilty would be sent to various places to suffer torture.

The entire Prison’s style was dark and gloomy. Su Lun also displayed various tortures from his previous life through paintings. Things like flaying, lingering death, dismemberment by chariots, waist-cutting, etc., were all standard fare. Others like burning on a bronze pillar, frying in oil, mountains of knives and seas of fire, iron brushes, etc., each looked more horrifying than the last.

The painters Su Lun specially hired felt chills hearing these descriptions, especially in the dark, oppressive environment of the Prison. Following Su Lun’s requirements, the painters deliberately made the details of the tortures vivid and lifelike.

At regular intervals, statues of fierce beasts were carved. Using lighting effects, these beasts appeared ferocious and terrifying. The entire Prison renovation took five days. When the Prison was completed, just its external appearance looked horrifying, making people instinctively want to flee.

[Constructed an Excellent Prison: This is a sinister and terrifying Prison where any criminal receives doubled punishment. Sinister and Terrifying +32, Extremely Sturdy +36, Power Suppression +34, Criminal Confinement +32, Repentance +33, Reformation +35, Psychological Shock +33, City Security +26, Popular Support +20, Prosperity -3]

Su Lun looked at the Prison constructed under his guidance with satisfaction. Just considering the number of attribute bonuses, this Prison was even stronger than Su Lun’s City Lord’s Manor, making it the highest-level building in Zhenbei City.

“Is this a Prison?” the craftsmen beside him said, looking at the Prison with lingering fear.

“Of course it’s a Prison. Would you like to experience it?” Su Lun said with a mischievous grin, looking at the craftsmen.

“No!” Hearing Su Lun’s words, all the craftsmen immediately shook their heads in refusal.

Su Lun ignored them and beckoned to a nearby Guard. “Go bring those low-level officials here in batches.”

“Yes, my Lord!” The Guard saluted respectfully and hurried off. After about fifteen minutes, the Guard quickly returned with over a dozen low-level officials to the Prison entrance.

“Lord!” The group of officials saluted Su Lun.

“Alright, everyone rise. I’ve called you here today for only one matter: a mandatory ideological education course for all Zhenbei City officials. Only by passing this course can you continue serving as officials in Zhenbei City,” Su Lun said, coming before everyone.

“Ideological education course?” They looked at each other in confusion.

“Yes, an ideological education course.” Su Lun nodded, then pointed to the Prison beside him. “The course content is simple. Later, you will follow me and the prison Guards on a tour of the Prison. It won’t take much time.”

Su Lun calmly scanned the group and said, “Let’s begin.”

With that, a prison Guard led Su Lun and those low-level officials into the Prison.