Struggle in the Steam Age

Time seemed to freeze in the meeting room, only the sound of Lawrence flipping through the broken document was left. During inspection, he found that the document looked more like a handwritten note than a file, rather than a file.

"Okay, I think I know what's going on." Lawrence put down the note after reading it. Then he spoke to the retainers sitting on both sides of the long table. "I have now figured out why those people established a town here twice and gave up twice."

In fact, the reason is also very simple. This land is a relatively independent land surrounded by the sea, mountains and rivers. From a certain point of view, it is easy to defend and difficult to attack. But the problem now is that there is an entire huge cave in that mountainous area, which is still occupied by a group of goblins.

In the previous several times of pioneering, the armed forces of those pioneers successfully killed all the enemies on this flat land. However, they have nothing to do with the goblins hiding in the mountains. After all, for most extraordinary people, it is too difficult to blow up the mountains with a relative height of about 1,000 meters.

And wanting to drill into those two-meter-high, one-meter-five-meter-wide tunnels to fight goblins is almost a nightmare for humans. Not to mention dodging in such a narrow place, it is very difficult to even wield a weapon in many places. Not to mention the darkness, humidity and lack of oxygen have always plagued the attackers.

Therefore, that group of armed forces retreated and left here after only killing 70% to 80% of the goblins. Because such an armed force needs to spend a lot of money to maintain it in such a place. It's obviously not a good idea to stay here and fight a guerrilla war with the goblins. So after they cleaned up the plains, they would complete the task, thinking that the colonists could use this period of time to develop, and they wouldn't worry about it even if there were more goblins in the future.

However, the reproductive ability of goblins far exceeds that of humans, after those colonists have just colonized this land for two or three years. The previous group of goblins returned to their previous numbers, and then launched attacks on human colonies again and again.

It is obviously impossible for the armed force that cleared this plain to be stationed here for a long time, but it is impossible to rely on the output of this place to raise a militia force that can maintain the status quo in just two or three years. . So they had no choice but to leave this land.

"I know that the reason why you object to colonizing this place is because there were failures here in the early days, and the armed forces we have now are not even as strong as those in the past." Lawrence looked at Butler Bayer and said, " So I have great confidence in choosing Niujiaowan.”

"Listen to me, I'm not the kind of arrogant person. I don't think that our power is stronger than that group of people back then." Lawrence interrupted seeing Butler Bayer about to stand up and say something. said what he said. "The reason why I have this confidence is because now I have a force in my hands that can specifically deal with this situation."

After finishing speaking, Lawrence took out Fatina's telegram and handed it to the steward, saying, "Goblins are just better at fighting in that kind of narrow cave than humans, but in front of these experts, they are far away. It’s not that he’s good at cave fighting.”

"You have rat-man friends!" After carefully reading the letter, Butler Bayer looked up at Lawrence in a little surprise. "If they are willing to have a Ratman clan come to help you as written in the letter, then the plan to occupy Oxhorn Bay should be no problem."

"Yes, it's really okay." Knight Joseph, who has participated in the civilization expedition and fought bloody battles with various wilderness races, also nodded in agreement. In his impression, once entering the narrow and dark cave, the fully armed ratman warriors could easily kill five or even ten times the number of goblins.

No matter the dark environment, all kinds of disgusting smells, or the simple traps set by the goblins, they could not stop the attack of these rat people who naturally liked to dig holes and were good at fighting in the caves. Correspondingly, if these rat people occupy the cave and defend it, they can easily defend against the attack of three or fifty times the goblins with the help of the cave and defense.

Therefore, as long as Fatina and the others occupy the caves in the mountains, they can ensure that the goblins before will return, and repeated harassment will no longer happen. At the same time, it can also add some extra defenses to those colonies on the plains.

After the problem was solved, everyone present quickly reached a consensus on the location of the first colony. Then everyone began to discuss the details of the construction of the colony.

At this point in the discussion, the expressions on Lawrence's and the others' faces suddenly relaxed a lot. Because as more and more materials were found, you found a lot of Niujiaowan materials that were beneficial to you on those yellow and brittle papers.

For example, a small town has been built here twice before, although the buildings on the ground either disappeared or were destroyed. But the drainage network and the foundations dug in the town before were not damaged, and so were the stone walls.

The same is true for the farmland on the outskirts of the town. After decades of being deserted in this tropical terrain, the land is naturally deserted. However, some ditches dug before and the land foundation that has been leveled are still there, which is much less difficult than directly opening up land in the tropical rainforest. Otherwise, just cutting down trees, digging roots, and leveling the land can exhaust people to death.

By the time everyone planned on the map for the first territory to be opened up in the future, they also completed a long voyage of more than three months and approached the island named New Sauer

In the early morning of this day, when everyone had just finished eating the canned food and was about to discuss the planning details further, the captain knocked on the door and walked into the meeting room, and told everyone that they would arrive at their destination soon. If everything goes well, at two or three in the afternoon You can see the coastline of Niujiao Bay when you are here.

"There is still time for these details to go ashore and plan." Lawrence said to his retainers after watching the captain leave, even if this world has extraordinary powers that can help store fresh food and water, overall it is more comfortable than Lawrence sailing in his previous life. But the nearly 100-day sea voyage still made everyone exhausted to the extreme.

"Let's go to the deck to bask in the sun and rest for half a day. After all, we should set foot on our own territory in the afternoon. At that time, everyone should be more energetic."

Lawrence's call naturally won the support of everyone in the meeting room. Even though they knew that what they were about to board was just a small deserted plain, they still hoped to board this land of their own in the best condition. land.

After arriving on the deck, Lawrence saw that there was still a vast sea in front of him. The only difference is that the sea has changed from the disturbing dark blue a few weeks ago to a lot lighter, and the bright sunshine makes everyone who sees this scene happy Not a lot.

The small fleet that Lawrence was in was like wild geese in the sky, breaking through the waves in a single formation on the calm sea, while the sea stretched from his feet all the way to the horizon, and then connected with the same blue sky. together.

Probably because of the proximity to islands and shallow seas, there are many snow-white seabirds circling behind the boat, swooping down from time to time into the white wake left by the boat and flying a fish into the sky. Lawrence even saw dolphins jumping out of the water not far from the side of the fleet, as if greeting everyone.

At this time, an extremely tiny protrusion appeared at the junction of the sea and the sky in the distance, and then it gradually became larger. Then came the excited shouts of the lookout from the observation deck on the mast. "Here we are!"