Don’t raise unruly people in extreme cold weather

Chapter 731: Rotten Town

The cold wind blew across the ground with a lot of snow.

Under the strong wind, these snowflakes are like tiny blades, which can cause considerable pain when they blow onto the face or other exposed skin on the body.

This also means that no matter who you are, if you want to go out in this kind of weather, you must wrap yourself up tightly without any air leaking in.

In addition to preventing snow from getting into your clothes, what is more important is that the cold wind will penetrate your body through every gap in your clothes and take away every bit of heat.

In a blizzard with strong winds, hypothermia is extremely dangerous and may even lead to death.

Of course, in such a windy environment, not many people would leave the shelter that can withstand the wind and snow and go outdoors in the wind and snow.

Unless he has a reason to go out.

Henry is such a person, or unlucky guy.

The settlement he lived in was a small one that was established after the Great Migration.

The so-called Great Migration refers to the large-scale migration of people from their homeland to the North after the empire announced the news of the doomsday disaster. This event is called the Great Migration among the people.

Because it was established relatively late, the settlement is very imperfect in both scale and supporting facilities.

After all, there were so many people migrating from the empire to the North at that time that the original engineering construction teams in the North were simply overwhelmed. Many settlements were built under such conditions, so it is understandable that some things were missing.

Of course, settlements like Henry's that don't even have energy towers are still a minority.

It is also natural that the living conditions in their settlement are not very good.

Most people live in underground shelters. Thankfully, at least in this respect their settlements have not been compromised. The underground shelters can withstand the severe cold and snow, allowing them to survive in the harsh environment of the North.

But compared to other settlements with energy towers, their living conditions are undoubtedly much worse.

This also means that the population of their settlement is not very large, and most of them come from unknown backgrounds.

In the North, this is somewhat unimaginable. After all, both the Empire and the North have conducted large-scale inspections on the population migrating to the North.

Those who can arrive in the North from the Empire through official channels all have formal and legal identities. Those criminals, gang members, etc., were all part of the punishment camp when they first arrived in the North.

However, even in Perfect's original world, smuggling and illegal immigration were a social evil that could not be eradicated, not to mention the backward steam age.

A ship that can cross the ocean can transport people from the empire to the north.

Although they had to face various difficulties and dangers on the road, and even the threat of death, there were still people who resolutely came to the North in this way.

And this settlement was established through such means.

It is also for this reason that this settlement does not have an energy tower.

If you just want to build an underground shelter, you can find a construction company to get a set of blueprints or secretly take a private job for you, but if you want to build an energy tower? Sorry, all the links are strictly controlled by the North Territory officials. It can even be said that every part is registered to check whether there is any cutting corners or substandard quality.

Once an accident occurs, all production links and persons involved in the production of this part must be checked.

Therefore, everyone in the settlement where Henry lived lived a hard life.

It’s not that there are not some people who want to go to other settlements to live a good life, but because they are all illegal immigrants, and many of them have criminal records, although it is not easy to investigate them in this era, these people themselves are still a little afraid.

So over time, things here gradually stabilized, and everyone's life was a little harder, but at least they could still get by.

With an underground shelter, although the weather is a little cold, life is still bearable.

Until the blizzard hit.

The main fuel for this settlement called Lankeng Town comes from a small coal mine nearby. When they were building the settlement here, they discovered this small coal mine exposed outside the surface. They mainly rely on manual digging to obtain the fuel needed for the settlement.

Although production is low, the demand in the settlement itself is not high either.

But when the blizzard hit, they had no way to get fuel. Being exposed to the blizzard could really freeze people stiff and even kill them.

However, without fuel, they would not be able to survive, so the people in the settlement came up with a bad idea, which was to draw lots every day to select ten people to go to the coal mine and transport the mined coal.

Because the coal mine is a mining pit, several habitable mine shafts were dug at the beginning of the excavation. Even if there is wind and snow, they will not feel cold because the ground temperature is still very high.

As long as the entrance is blocked, it can basically be guaranteed that the temperature will not freeze people to death.

If we light a little charcoal fire to keep warm, we can still live comfortably.

But transportation... I'm sorry, since the snowstorm hit, more than eighteen residents of Lankeng Town have died on the way to transport coal.

They all froze to death.

Even though the town would give the people who transported the coal a full hot meal and the thickest and best warm clothes, the raging blizzard made every transport like a close dance with death.

But today the wind and snow seemed to have subsided a little. At least when Henry and his crew were dragging a cart of coal back, only one of the ten people froze to death.

However, when they returned to the town, they found that the atmosphere in the town was quite wrong.

Because in an open space in the underground shelter, a steam knight that they would never have the chance to see was standing there, and a white bear head on the knight's breastplate was very conspicuous.

There was no doubt that this was a knight of the Order of the White Bear, representing none other than the Lord of the North and Regent of the Empire himself.

"In the name of the Lord of the North, the Imperial Regent Order is executed. All residents of Lankeng Town must move to Kirk Town within a certain period of time. The settlement will be abandoned." The Steam Knight took out an order, read it out, and looked at the mayor: "Although you are all illegal immigrants, the Lord has kindly given you a chance to become official residents of the North. As long as you move to Kirk Town, you will all be able to obtain legal status."

"Legal identity? Is this true? Are they kidding us?" The residents of Lankeng Town whispered to each other, and everyone had a feeling of unreality.

If you can obtain legal status and live a good life, who would be willing to starve and freeze here?
(End of this chapter)