Chapter 129: Chapter 125, Execution
“Marinus Flanagan, charged with murder, subversion of the government, enslavement, imprisonment… by the name of The Emperor, you are sentenced to death!”
“Jesse Dutra, charged with murder, fraud… by the name of The Emperor, you are sentenced to death!”
“Lloyd Eukic, charged with…”
…
Many people, originally dressed in exquisite clothes which were now dirty and soiled from detention and interrogation, were bound and kneeling on the ground.
They looked at Lambert, seated at the judgment bench, reading out their charges, but they could not utter a single word in their defense.
They couldn’t speak; their tongues had all been uniformly cut out to prevent them from speaking out of turn at such an important event.
They were only needed here to make an appearance before meeting their fates.
In fact, they weren’t the first ones. Before them, beneath the high platform of the trial, there was another platform, splattered with bloodstains.
Just moments ago, in groups of ten, after the sentences were pronounced, they were dragged down to the lower platform. Then, a gun was placed against the back of each person’s head, and with the executioner’s command, gunshots sounded simultaneously. The kneeling people immediately fell forward as blood sprayed everywhere.
Immediately afterward, people came to drag away the bodies, and while the next group’s crimes were being read, workers carried buckets of water to splash over the execution platform, then swiftly mopped it down.
It was certainly impossible to clean completely at once; by the time the next group was dragged over, the ground was still damp, the smell of blood rushing up to one’s nostrils.
Scared enough to wet their pants, twisting and turning trying to resist… it was all routine, but utterly meaningless.
Then came more orders, another series of gunshots, another group sentenced…
The prisoners prepared by Lambert would take over twenty batches to finish.
During this period of terror politics that enveloped Revival City, roughly two thousand people had been captured.
Of course, not all of them would be executed here. On one hand, not everyone was sentenced to death, and on the other hand, sentencing and executing two thousand people one by one would take too much time.
A total of about two hundred would suffice to make a point. The remaining four or five hundred death row prisoners would be dealt with later.
Among the arrested, there were also those who were truly innocent; about five hundred or so were eventually released. The remaining thousand or so were all sentenced to labor, prepared to be sent to the mines at the Waste Hole Society Ruins to dig for ore.
This group of people, by the standards of the Waste Lands, seemed rather delicate. Presumably, they had never engaged in such intense physical labor. After toiling in the dark mines for five years, it was unknown how many would survive to see the end of their sentence.
Below the execution platform was the Square of Punishment.
This place was located in front of the Alliance Council’s great hall, a rather large space capable of accommodating about twenty thousand people with no problem.
Now, about half that number, roughly ten thousand people, were standing there.
These spectators were essentially from the top 10% of residents in terms of status within Revival City.
They had been ‘invited’ to watch this trial, and they were quite touched upon receiving the invitation.
The scenes unfolding before them were indeed chilling to the bone.
Among those being executed, there were many they knew, many they were familiar with.
In the past, these were their leaders, their superiors, their bosses.
Whenever they encountered them, they would probably have to bow and scrape, greet them respectfully, hoping to get some small benefit; a bit of patronage might mean a better future.
But now, these individuals who were once so lofty, were being executed in batches before them, like dead dogs.
During the execution, the onlookers fell silent as cicadas in winter.
My lord Governor, it’s real this time.
This made many among them have to deeply recall the second-generation governor from six years ago…
No, even more outrageous than the second-generation governor.
The original second-generation governor, in order to implement his reign of terror and extort wealth, also relied on the administrative power and military strength of the Alliance itself. In that era, although it caused a horrific disaster, since the administrative measures depended on the Alliance system, many of them were within this system, they themselves were the executors of the terror.
Many times, terror did not descend upon their own heads.
But the new governor is not like that. He has established a set of forces out of thin air, forces that carry out his will. The new governor truly does not need them.
Over two thousand people were arrested, two hundred are on the execution stage, being executed as simply as slaughtering pigs. This means, almost all the leaders of the ruling class under the Alliance system, all the heads of various interest groups, were wiped out in one sweep.
Isn’t this enough to reflect the Governor’s determination and ruthlessness?
Now, they could truly feel that Revival City, the Alliance, and even the whole Rage Owl Star, had truly changed.
…
From the highest platform, Gu Hang looked down silently at everything.
The fresh blood on the execution stage, the silent and fearful populace below, none of it caused the slightest change in his expression.
He was indeed destroying the existing order. The goal was to clean house, to more conveniently rebuild the order he desired.
His methods toward the Inner City residents were different from those toward the Outer City.
The Outer City people were poor, miserable, and couldn’t even fill their stomachs, so he used a gentle approach, showing mercy, giving hope, establishing credibility. Let them be fed and clothed, let them live and work in peace and contentment, and they would naturally become his force.
The Inner City people lived decent lives, and it was not cost-effective to buy them off with more benefits. Thus, he used decisive means to plant terror in their hearts and minds, to prevent them from daring to become obstacles.
Gu Hang obviously couldn’t let these Inner City people continue to be vampires. Furthermore, he wanted the Inner City people to bleed, otherwise, who would bear the cost of the resources for buying off the Outer City people?
Contrary to what he had imagined, after cleaning out the nobles in the city, Gu Hang did not gain much of any real value.
Money was meaningless. The so-called Alliance currency, issued by the Alliance Government with a rather limited circulation, seemed like waste paper to Gu Hang.
He had not yet completely abolished the use of Alliance currency, but it was just a matter of time.
Gu Hang had no patience to engage in any financial industry here.
Could the financial industry help with taxes? Could they use Alliance currency to negotiate with the tax officials of the Empire?
Obviously not.
Currency is merely a means for regulating the economy.
The destructive storm unleashed by the Primordial Wrath Owl Sect, in some ways, had helped Gu Hang quite a bit. With the Outer City people having next to nothing, Gu Hang realized that he did not need to maintain the original financial system of Revival City.
And what he obtained from those so-called nobles, the most important thing was the industries they originally controlled.
Next, Gu Hang would largely abolish and not recognize the use of Alliance currency, which would directly make all the Inner City people impoverished. Their past accumulated wealth would, under this decision, all become piles of waste paper in their homes.
They wouldn’t end up with nothing, after all, they still had their homes, some material savings, far better off than the Outer City people who were starting from scratch.
But their past lives would surely be gone forever.
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Updated 5.5k today, aiming for a big chapter tomorrow.