Chapter 310: Getting Rich Through War
"So, little ones." The old soldier narrowed his eyes and looked at the young soldiers: "Do you know what to do?"
As they were talking, a cold wind blew across the field.
The centurion was still riding on his tall dragon lizard, watching all this silently. The adult soldiers also followed behind him without saying a word, looking at this side vaguely.
Kayn: “…”
He suddenly shuddered and immediately reacted: "Yes, sir! We will definitely do our best to capture the village occupied by the Leader!"
"Not bad. Kid, you are very sensible." The old soldier looked at Kayn with satisfaction, as if admiring his cleverness.
So this officer, who usually disdained to look at the young soldiers, smiled warmly at Kayn for the first time: "Just follow the centurion commander honestly, and you will naturally reap the benefits in the future."
"If you behave well, you don't have to wait until you reach adulthood. It's not impossible to let you become regular soldiers in advance."
"This..." The teenagers widened .
Becoming a formal scout is the dream of every scout.
Although this dream is not difficult to achieve in theory, as long as they can live to the age of 16, they can be unconditionally converted to regular soldiers, with salary, allowances, pensions, and the right to share spoils of war.
But in fact...living to the age of 16 is a huge threshold in itself that can eliminate 90% of young soldiers.
"Sir, we will never let the Centurion down!" The young soldiers' eyes were burning with flames of fanaticism and excitement.
Only Kayn was still conscious.
If it was before he met the Leader, he might have been encouraged by such empty promises. He would have thought that as long as he gritted his teeth and held on, he would be able to make a name for himself in the army, become a hero of Noxus, and become an officer.
But now, he has become immune to this kind of pie in the sky.
So, Kayn followed everyone in showing his loyalty to the veteran, while watching everything silently with a heavy heart.
After the old soldier had explained the details of the massacre mission in detail, he finally couldn't help but ask the old soldier tentatively: "Sir, I want to ask some questions."
"Huh?" The old soldier glanced over immediately.
Noticing that it was Kayn who had been the first to actively stand up and express his loyalty, his expression softened slightly: "You go."
“I…” Kayn swallowed, “I heard that many teams have encountered the Wind Leader’s guerrillas in the countryside recently. Are these ‘Wind Leader’s guerrillas’ also…”
Are they all innocent villagers who were given military merits? !
Kayn had never cared about the lives of these strangers before, but now, he instinctively wanted to know.
"Well...ha." The old soldier smiled meaningfully: "Little guy, what do you think?"
Killing innocent people and claiming credit for their crimes was a traditional skill of the old-style army. In the Noxian Empire, this kind of situation was not a question of whether there were any or not, but only a question of how many there were.
When a country's national strength is growing and military discipline is strict, such situations are less common.
This kind of situation is more common when a country is in decline and the army is corrupt.
In recent years, the national conditions of Noxus are obviously closer to the latter.
Of course, there are inspectors in the army who are responsible for identifying the so-called "battle results" reported by grassroots officers. If the battle is fought in other places, the inspectors basically have a way to distinguish the water in these battle reports.
For example:
Demacia's elite troops are all armored. If you claim to have captured 100 heads, you must hand in 100 sets of Demacia's standard armor along with the heads.
The indigenous warriors of Shurima and the barbarian warriors of Freljord are all muscular men with broad shoulders and strong waists who have been tempered in harsh environments such as desert ice fields.
If you want to use the corpses of civilians who have few muscles on their bodies to make up the numbers, the Inspector will rudely send you to the slave army to experience a lifelong journey.
However, these tricks no longer work in Ionia.
Ionia has no regular army at all, and the civil resistance forces are not much different from civilians in terms of equipment and physical characteristics.
Not to mention Riven and other leaders.
The tens of thousands of people they rescued from the Yipu River Port half a month ago, who are now the main force of the Ionian leaders, were originally civilians.
Therefore, the superiors ordered to search for the leader with all their strength——
The grassroots soldiers rushed into the village like hungry wolves out of a cage and engaged in a firefight with the "Leader Guerrillas".
There have been no major battles in the past half month, but there have been countless small battles and countless gains.
In a trance, the entire Yipu River Basin seemed to have become the base camp of the leader.
"So you don't have to worry at all." The veteran smiled playfully: "After all, we are not the only team doing this."
"I can't tell you the details. I can only tell you that the copy of 'Jana Thoughts' has been sold out in the military camp recently."
Kayn: “…”
He clenched his fists tighter and tighter, but his palms were cold.
He didn't dare to think too deeply, and asked again: "But, sir...I heard that recently the regiment has suffered a lot of casualties and even lost a lot of supplies because of the Wind Leader Guerrilla incident?"
If those leaders were just civilians, how come their regiment suffered so many casualties?
"Casualties? Pah!" The old soldier sneered and spat, "I think that was all spread by General Lester!"
"Those high-ranking officers of that bunch of bastards make a lot more money than we do! I have to toil away to chop off heads, but they can make a killing just by sitting in their tents and changing some accounts."
"So of course they want us to have 'casualties'. Even if we don't have any, they can still record a large number of casualties in their accounts."
"W-what?" Kayn looked confused. He was not very experienced after all.
At this time, the old soldier only explained: "Think about it, idiot, if you were General Lester."
"The headquarters allocated you a full regiment of 30,000 soldiers, but you only recruited 20,000 soldiers. Did the saved 10,000 soldiers' salaries go into your own pocket?"
“This…” Kaiyin couldn’t believe it: “Sir, you, you mean…”
General Lester is drawing a salary without doing any work?!
How is this possible? !
Kayn's position in the army was too low. Even after these days of self-awakening, his understanding of the Imperial Army was still very limited.
In his eyes, and in the eyes of most people in Runeterra, Noxus was an efficient killing machine.
People will curse its brutality, but no one will believe that this horrible machine has rotted and rusted from the inside.
But that's the fact.
"How is it impossible?" The old soldier snorted disdainfully: "General Lester was also a soldier like us. If he doesn't make money this way, where else can his family get so much money from?"
Noxian warbands can basically be divided into two types.
One type is an independent war group that was transformed from various small countries, city-states, and tribes that were annexed and recruited in the past. It still has a considerable scale of autonomous territory and has extremely high autonomy in personnel, finance, etc.
This is actually an independent warlord group. If they collect salaries without working, they will suffer the consequences.
The leaders of their regiments are all noble families of princely status, so there is no need for them to make money in this way.
But General Lester was different.
He is a new generation general from a grassroots background. The chapter under his command was formed by the central government of the empire, not an independent chapter. The personnel appointments and financial lifeline of the chapter are also firmly in the hands of the imperial high-level officials of the Immortal Fortress.
When Swain was in power, upstarts like him could follow the fair and selfless teacher Swain and get promoted and make money in a fair and just way based on their military achievements.
But in recent years, Swain has been repeatedly suppressed within the empire, and last year he was chopped into a commoner by a 14-year-old girl.
Leicester, a new generation of generals who unfortunately followed the wrong person and stood on the wrong side, naturally became the target of attacks within the empire as Swain fell from power.
If Lester had not given enough money and shown enough loyalty to the old nobles of the Immortal Fortress in time, he would not even be able to keep his position as the leader of this chapter, let alone make further progress.
After some efforts, he managed to stabilize his career.
But the problem is...
Where should this money come from?
A new noble like Leicester, who has no family background, certainly could not come up with such a huge sum of money just by relying on military rewards.
There was nothing he could do. He could only eat empty salaries and suck the blood of the soldiers.
So in these two years, the Noxian army, which was already in decline, quickly corrupted at a speed that made Swain have a high blood pressure attack.
This grassroots veteran who could only show off his knowledge in front of Kayn certainly could not see the conflicts among the imperial high-ranking officials.
But what he knew was that "General Lester not only ate the salary without doing anything, but also smuggled military supplies."
"That's why our regiment suffers so many casualties every time we fight. Think about it, if we report more casualties and material losses every time we fight, wouldn't that balance the score?"
Those "air soldiers" and "air supplies" in the accounts became real "real people and real objects" once the war broke out.
Not only can the accounts be balanced, but one can also receive an additional pension for the "fallen soldiers" from the higher authorities.
"You see, the officer is no different from us." The old soldier laughed. "We use the heads of those Ionians to make up the numbers, and they use our heads to make money. It's the same."
“This…” Kayn was shocked.
It turns out there are so many ways to fight a war, and you can also make a fortune.
Unconsciously, he clenched the "Brief Account of Janna's Thought" in his hand.
Levi wrote in the book that Noxus was about to explode, but Kayn refused to believe it at first. He couldn't imagine that such a powerful giant would fall.
But now, he only had one thought in his mind:
"This empire... is about to end!"
