I'm the Dauphin in France

Chapter 673 Workers Armed
A gang of bandits appeared near Tarnovskaya Mountain.

It is said that it is composed of some Carpathians and Bulgarian mercenaries who fled to Austria, and has committed several cases in the town of Chebinia and other places.

Well, the news was published in the Małopolska Izvestia. As for whether these things are true, people usually prefer to believe it rather than not.

As a result, nearly half of the residents of Krakow were extremely nervous and stayed indoors before dark.

The Umyan 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 the dormitory.

The company manager Xianlovich hurriedly led people to the scene of the incident, but only saw several large pools of blood and the empty wallets of three technicians - with their names embroidered on the wallets.

This situation was very serious. You know, there were only 15 French technicians in the silver mine. If any one of them was missing, the steam engine in the mine might become unusable due to a malfunction.

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

After that, the gang became more and more arrogant, openly robbing almost every day. They even attacked a warehouse of the Umyan Mining Company, stole the valuables inside, and then burned it down.

At the company's high-level meeting, Xianlovich shouted at the tall man standing in front of him with a dark face: "Mr. Makovsky, those gangsters burned down Ursuha's warehouse and walked away! The guards in the warehouse didn't even put up any resistance!"

Makovsky lowered his head and said with great grievance: "Mr. General Manager, there were as many as 11 or bandits that day, and they all had flintlock rifles. At that time, there were only guards in the warehouse. If they had not withdrawn, they would have been burned to ashes along with the warehouse."

"Your patrol team has more than 300 people, and you still can't deal with those bandits?"

Places like silver mines naturally have their own paramilitary forces to protect them, and Makovsky is the captain of the silver mine patrol team.

"Yes, sir, there are still hundreds of policemen on Tarnovsk Mountain. The Krakow garrison is not far away." Makovsky argued, "But the mine is 40 versts wide, plus several nearby towns, there are too many places to defend.

"I heard that there are more than 150 bandits in that group. The patrol team cannot stop them with their current strength."

A company director with half-gray hair next to him said, "Captain, how many people do you think the patrol team should have in order to effectively resist the gangs?"

Makovsky paused for a moment and said, "At least 1 people, Baron Kischkov. And each of them must be equipped with a flintlock rifle."

Although the gang only had 150 members, their movements were erratic, and patrols had to be deployed to guard all the key locations in the mine to barely ensure its safety.

Depue said at the right time: "It will cost at least 1 zlotys to form a standing patrol team of 80 people."

Sure enough, upon hearing such a large amount, all the board members shook their heads.

In the end, the board only gave Makovsky the authority to add 150 patrol members and requested the garrison in Krakow to help suppress the bandits.

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

Mr. Depue, the company's second manager, who represented France to enforce the company's shareholder rights, and his assistant, coachman, and maid were all kidnapped by the gang.

The kidnappers demanded a ransom of 40 zlotys, otherwise they would kill the victim.

Everyone in the Umyan Mining Company was suddenly in a panic.

When the French technician was killed before, the French ambassador sent someone to protest. Now that a senior manager was in trouble, it could even cause a diplomatic dispute! The company's board of directors made a decision in just half an afternoon - to pay money from the company's account to redeem Mr. Depue.

40 zlotys is more than 60 francs - fortunately it was in the silver mine, otherwise given Poland's difficult financial situation, it might not be possible to get the money from other places.

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

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

However, Depue did not feel happy after surviving the disaster. Instead, he looked at Xianlovich 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 would not have fallen into the hands of those devils!

"You must rescue her, otherwise I will sue the Minister!"

Xianlovitch said cautiously: "Mr. Depuer, I am just a servant, you don't have to..."

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

Everyone in the room understood instantly that the relationship between this maid and him was probably unusual.

Under tremendous pressure from the kidnapping incident, the Umiyang Mining Company finally agreed to expand the patrol team to 650 people.

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

Depue was furious.

He went directly to the Krakow Municipal Commissioner and asked him to recruit mercenaries to launch a siege against the gangs. As for the expenses, he could pay most of it.

Well, actually it was paid from the previous ransom of 40 zlotys.

The Krakow City Hall is also very troubled by the gangs. After all, it is their jurisdiction. If they continue to make trouble like this, they will definitely not be able to vote in the next election.

Just at this moment, someone was willing to pay, so they readily agreed.

In the end, the Karakow City Hall also took out 15 zlotys, plus Depue's money, a total of 45, to recruit mercenaries.

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

The main thing, of course, was that Depue said he could get 2 cheap flintlock rifles from France and he would pay for half of them.

All the company executives could see that he was going crazy, so who dared to raise any objections?
The company quickly organized all the miners, including residents of several surrounding towns - most of their livelihoods were related to the mines, so they cooperated with the mining company's requirements - a total of more than 4 young and middle-aged people, who would undergo military training once a week for 6 hours each time.

This amount of training may seem small, but in fact, except for major powers such as Britain, France, Prussia and Austria, European armies only train 3 to 5 days a month.

And after these miners and townspeople have completed basic training, they can be taken to actual combat to "suppress bandits" - they certainly won't see any gangs, because they are all disguised as people from the Intelligence Bureau, but at least they can practice marching in the wild environment and become familiar with the officers' orders.

(End of this chapter)