Conquer Europe from the West

Chapter 133 The world is vast, but the belly is the biggest.

Ryan's two sentences left everyone present completely baffled.

Hammer and Brinkman looked at Raine with expressions of utter disbelief, as did the other soldiers who had heard the conversation—especially those who had been farmers for generations.

It should be noted that even in empires dominated by plains, the average arable land per person is less than half a hectare. A typical self-sufficient farmer's land is only fifty or sixty mu (approximately 0.3 to 0.3 hectares), which is roughly three to five hectares.

But nobody's a fool.

As soldiers of the empire, everyone present had a clear understanding of the weights and measures of the surrounding countries.

The Chetville region that Renn just mentioned is a little more than the half-hectare currently used by the Empire...

If one piece of intelligence can be exchanged for half a hectare of land, then if this Russian can provide ten useful pieces of intelligence, he can easily exchange them for the entire fortune of an ordinary farmer in the Empire!

Even if he doesn't say much, as long as it's all true, he can still get the entire fortune of an ordinary farmer in the empire!
That's a lot of money.

That's roughly the income of a factory worker in the Empire who wouldn't eat or drink for fifteen years!
Therefore, even those soldiers who had never farmed since childhood and whose families all worked in the city turned to look at Renn.

For them, it was a huge loss that their leader, who had been trying to embarrass them since August, was willing to spend so much money to buy off the cavalry of this empire.

As for this Russian...

His brain just went blank.

Renn could see his eyes growing increasingly vacant, his gray pupils wide open, muttering to himself, constantly uttering Russian numbers that Renn could understand, as well as some words that he couldn't comprehend.

But that's not important.

Because Renn knew very well that he had achieved his goal.

This Russian was either calculating how much land he could get in exchange for the information he knew, or he was calculating how many rubles it would cost in the Empire to buy those ten Chetverty plots of land.

But the Russian knew very well what was going on.

It's clear that he couldn't have bought so much land on his own.

Even if they were to give up their lives, they wouldn't be able to exchange even half a piece of land in Chetville.

Even if he was farming for the nobles of the empire just like before the war, even if the nobles of the empire only accepted 85% of his grain—which was a full 50% less than the landowners of other empires!

He couldn't afford even a tenth of Chetville's land.

His annual income is only enough for him to eat.

They didn't even have enough money left to buy firewood for the winter.

Don't ask why you can't chop firewood and collect dry branches yourself.

The answer is that all the trees and grass in the country belong to the landlords, and if you want to burn firewood, you have to spend money to buy it from them.

That is, the noble lord from the empire was willing to part with it.

He was allowed to use the land clearing to pay for firewood, and he was also allowed to collect the leftover straw after the harvest, as well as the fallen branches and trunks in the surrounding woodlands, for his own use.

Otherwise, he would have died long ago, like his peers, before even turning twenty-two, starving, freezing, or dying of illness.

But those days will be over by August of this year.

Farland went to war with the Empire, and the Imperial State also declared war. The land that the old masters originally owned was seized by the new masters, and the draft horses that were originally borrowed from the old masters were also taken away.

The new master not only took away all his belongings, but also pretended to be kind and told him that although he was going to take all the grain, as long as he continued to farm, he could receive a palm-sized dough ball every day.

What kind of bullshit joke is this?
Serfs ate more than this every day.

Then he ran away, without looking back.

The tenant farmers told him to burn the land and run as far away as possible.

But he couldn't bear to part with his crops that hadn't been harvested yet.

Raine stood in the cold wind, smoking one cigarette after another.

He looked at the Russian man in front of him, who was clearly several years younger than him but looked to be at least in his forties, and then at Hammer beside him.

Hammer kept staring at Raine, making him feel uneasy.

"What are you looking at me for?" Ryan nudged Hammer lightly and said, "Let me play with the lighter."

Hammer immediately clutched his pockets, saying, "Colonel, where did you get so much land?"

His words immediately snapped the Russian man next to him out of his daze.

The Russian immediately looked at Raine, his eyes still holding some expectation, but mostly wariness.

This infuriated Renn.

He raised his hand and slapped Hammer on the back of the head: "You're such a chatterbox, can't I just buy it myself!"

Hammer persisted, stubbornly asking, "Where did you get so much money?"

Then Brinkman quickly dragged Hammer aside before Renn could make a move.

While dragging Hammer along, she berated him for being ungrateful and revealing the income of a high-ranking Imperial officer. Then, in a voice that Rein could barely hear, she whispered to him, "The colonel now earns more than five thousand marks a month. He's worth a hundred of you. You better shut the hell up in front of the prisoners."

As a result, Renn couldn't hold back first.

He ran up and gave Brinkman and Hammer a whack on the back of the head each before returning to the Russian: "Don't listen to those two idiots' nonsense. I just have a bit of priority allocation."

As he spoke, Ryan felt that this was not enough, so he gave him another boost: "Moreover, if your intelligence is indeed useful and helps us reduce our losses, then you will not only be allocated land immediately, but you will also receive a pardon. You won't have to spend time in a prisoner-of-war camp like everyone else and be released only after the war."

The Russian was clearly much calmer now. Although his legs were trembling from the cold and his eyes were starting to glance at the cigarette butt in Ryan's hand, his tone hardened: "How can you guarantee that?"

He's at least somewhat educated, and knowing so much is not something an ordinary person could promise in one go.

But it was at this moment that he remembered Brinkman and Hammer referring to Ryan as a colonel.

He then pressed on, "They said you're a colonel, but why did you only bring so few men?"

Imperial colonels are usually regimental commanders, but there are clearly fewer people here than a regiment, at most a company.

But before he could finish speaking, he saw the Blue Star Max Medal hanging on Ryan's collar.

An absurd idea began to form in his mind.

The cavalryman of this imperial kingdom shook his head frantically, his face contorted in shock!

"You're the Colonel Friega who managed to get the United Kingdom and Farland to cease hostilities with the Empire just by talking?"

Rein glanced at him, then at Hammer and Brinkman, who were crouching on the ground with their heads in their hands after he had hit them, before turning back to light a cigarette with a match: "Do people from the Empire know my name too?"

Brinkman: "After the war started, your name and photo were everywhere. After you cursed the United Kingdom's cabinet, I think there's no country around that doesn't recognize you."

Ryan had a bad feeling. There must be spies from other countries in the General Staff: "Do they have my picture?"

One of Hammer's soldiers shouted, "Full color, ultra-high definition, comparable to an oil painting personally painted by the dean of the Werner Academy of Fine Arts!"

Brinkman: "Nonsense, it was drawn by the dean himself. Chief of Staff Falkingham personally asked me to invite him!"

Ryan: “?”

Damn, I've seen people turn their elbows outward, but I've never seen someone turn their elbows outward from the top and not let anyone know.

But it's no use talking about it now.

He turned to look at the Russian cavalryman in front of him, his voice sounding somewhat helpless: "You heard it too, I am Colonel Frieger."

But the Russian shook his head again: "Then I can't say!"

"what?"

Russian: "Our company commander said you're all talk and no action, exaggerating every little thing. You even said that your Empire is going to team up with the United Kingdom and France to attack us and take our land!"

This made Ryan laugh.

He immediately asked, "Where did you get this land from?"

"Me... um?"

The Russian was dumbfounded: "Right, where did I get this land from?"

Ryan: "You don't own any land, so how can I take your land?"

The Russian got anxious: "But our company commander said..."

Hammer added, "That's because your company commander must own a lot of land."

Brinkman added, "Don't forget that you're the ones attacking our empire now. Our troops haven't even seen the borders of the Empire yet."

This completely disoriented the Russian.

He stood there, both anxious and angry: "Wait a minute, right? I don't have any land, so why is your empire taking our land?"

"You didn't attack our empire either."

"This...this...our company commander...is he lying to me?"

Rein immediately pointed to the location of the supply depot: "Why don't you go ask your company commander?"

As soon as he finished speaking, the Russian started walking forward.

The surrounding soldiers couldn't stop him, but the Russian immediately stopped. "No, you're lying to me!"

He said, "You lied to me about the information!"

Renn remained silent, exhaling a puff of smoke: "This also counts as all the land in Tverti, it's on your tab."

The Russian was extremely anxious. He scratched his head, wanting to run away but also afraid that what Ryan said was true. After a long while, he finally said, "You write it down!"

Immediately, a soldier handed him a pencil and a notebook.

Ryan scribbled something on the paper with his distinctive scribbles, signed his name, and handed it to the other person: "You can write your name, right?"

"will not."

Renn laughed in exasperation: "Aren't you afraid I'll just write something completely nonsensical?"

But the Russian immediately pulled out his military ID from his chest: "Ivan, Ivan Shadrin, please copy this."

Raine shook his head, glanced at it, then scribbled something incoherently, tore the paper off, and tucked it into Shadrin's military ID. He said, "Now you have all the land in Tverti. Want to say a little more?"

Shadrin carefully put the soldier's ID card into his pocket before saying, "I want the land in Yukran. I've seen the land there before; it's all good black soil!"

Renn was speechless, but still nodded: "Okay, but you can only get it after the war."

Shadrin then said, "It must not be stolen land! I want clean land, clean land that will not be stolen."

“Okay, I’ll take you shopping after the war. Just point to where you want to go,” Ryan agreed immediately. “Now, can you tell me everything you know?”

Shadrin was still somewhat hesitant.

But his eyes were noticeably more determined than before.

After a while, he said, "I'll tell you."

Ryan immediately beckoned to Brinkman, and the girl immediately came forward, took out her notebook, and wrote them down one by one.

But Shadrin didn't provide much information.

It was simply a matter of when they arrived in the Empire. He served in the 7th Squadron of the 1st Cavalry Division. The squadron's mission was to bypass Insterburg, gradually eliminate the Empire's supply depots, and attempt to rendezvous with troops that had bypassed the area from the north, ultimately sabotaging the railway.

Shadrin seemed afraid that Renn wouldn't believe him, so he pointed to the pit he had just fallen into and said that he had previously surrendered a P-08, which was clipped to his belt.

The soldiers in the second platoon were very angry, but intelligence was the most important thing, so they immediately got down and searched for a long time before successfully finding a P-08.

Without exception, all of these were counted as half an acre of land by Renn.

Once all the intelligence had been compiled, Ryan took the notebook from Brinkman.

He carefully numbered all the intelligence reports and then read them all aloud in front of Shadrin: "That's all? Nothing else?"

"No, if you ask again I won't know if I'm right or wrong."

Shadrin was very concerned about what Renn had said, "If you're absolutely right, you'll get ten more Chetwellian plots of land," so he wouldn't say anything else.

Seeing this, Renn didn't ask any more questions. He simply counted them and said, "There are seventeen pieces of intelligence in total. Counting the two you mentioned before, that makes a total of nineteen Chetville. I'll round it up for you, let's say twenty."

"As for whether the intelligence has been verified to be correct, that will have to wait until the war is over, so I can't give you an answer right away."

“Then I…”

Shadrin immediately became agitated, and a soldier tried to restrain him in case of emergency, but was stopped by Raine.

Raine waved to the man, signaling them to disperse, and said to Shadrin, "Don't rush."

"The war will last for a while, so I'll give you another way."

“There’s no one in our unit who can speak Russian right now. If you’re willing, I can pay you to be our translator.”

"How about I pay you double what you would earn serving in the Empire?"

"Okay!" Shadrin replied without hesitation.

His mind was completely captivated by the black soil of his thirty Chetville in Yukran.

Hammer, who was standing nearby, took a spare pair of cotton trousers and a spare pair of military boots from the car and handed them to Shadrin. He then arranged for his men to take them to the last truck and keep them under guard.

But Brinkman's expression changed: "Are you sure you want to give him that many acres of land?"

"Why not?"

Raine smiled, his eyes fixed on the information in his notebook.

Shadrin said that they had a cavalry squadron that had captured the supply depot, and the number of men and horses matched the system's display.

This is good news.

Moreover, these cavalrymen were only equipped with a standard machine gun squad, consisting of two machine guns.

In other words, their firepower was completely insufficient to contend with the assault company.

The only thing to worry about is the checkpoints set up by the supply depots along the roadside, but that's not a big problem.

Because he has a self-propelled truck-mounted artillery; one shot and everything is dead.

But Brinkman's voice rang out again: "So you plan to do the same to other imperial prisoners of war?"

“That’s another matter.” Ryan shook his head, then gestured to the soldiers around him to prepare to depart, before clutching his notebook and walking toward the self-propelled truck-mounted artillery.

Brinkman followed behind him: "This is against the rules, Colonel. Besides, he's a citizen of the Empire. What if he was lying to us all along..."

But Ryan immediately interrupted Brinkman's speech.

He said, "I don't think he has any reason to lie to us, Lieutenant."

"If he has lied to us, then he only has two paths to choose from."

"First, he was arrested and executed by the Empire as a traitor."

"Second, he was arrested and executed by the Empire as a fraudster."

"But aren't you afraid of him..."

Brinkman still looked worried.

Renn didn't want to waste any more time on this topic, so he said directly, "He's a farmer who can't even get enough to eat, so how could he possibly have the mind to protect some damned Tsar?"

This girl lives in too good a life; she doesn't understand what it means for someone to never have enough to eat or wear in their entire life.

"The world is big, but the belly is the biggest. If you can't get enough to eat, even if a goddess comes, it won't help."

After saying that, Ryan ignored Brinkman and turned to climb to the door of the truck's cannon cab.

"You must immediately complete the installation of the truck-mounted artillery. The Empire has occupied our supply depot, and we must retake it before dawn!"

"But we don't have enough shells!"

The gunner glanced at the carriage behind him: "We only brought 20 shells. What can we possibly do with that?"

The FK.96 has a rate of fire of eight rounds per minute, but because this gun is not the old model used by the troops in Alsace, but the NA model with a hydraulic muzzle brake, the rate of fire has been increased to 10 rounds per minute.

Twenty shells can only last for two minutes at most, which isn't even enough to warm up a typical artillery piece.

But Ryan woke the gunner up with just one sentence.

He said, "I didn't ask you to use this thing to bombard the enemy's position to death. At best, this cannon can only hit enemies within visual range."

"If you dare tell me you can't hit a single one of your 20 shots, I'll fire you right now."

"That won't work!"

The gunner immediately retorted, "I haven't even warmed up this gun yet! No one can help me!"

Then he was slapped on the head by Ryan's hand that reached through the car window: "Then why don't you hurry up and set up the cannon?"

"Yes!"

The gunner immediately pushed open the trapdoor behind him, laboriously crawled into the rear carriage, and began to give orders for setting up the gun.

Soon, the wooden panels on both sides of the truck's gun compartment were removed, leaving the short-barreled 77mm FK96 gun, whose door was fixed to a 360-degree rotating base, completely exposed to the air.

Hammer immediately called out the names of several people and had them move the ammunition stored in another vehicle to the ammunition racks of the truck-mounted cannon.

At the same time, Ryan grabbed Brinkman, who was trying to sneak onto an troop carrier: "Lieutenant, wait a minute."

Brinkman stiffened, realizing something was wrong, and turned to look at Ryan with a forced smile, saying, "What is it, Colonel?"

Rein: "Lieutenant, you're probably the only noble in the unit right now, aren't you?"

"So?" Brinkman's face remained stiff, but his eyes were already fixed on Renn's belt.

Then Ryan pulled out the sunglasses that glowed red when the horse wore them: "Put them on."

"do not want!"

"Put on Kang Kang!!"

(End of this chapter)