CHAPTER 473: CHAPTER 449: RIOT · 13

Although preparing for the imminent war with the heretical sects, Perfikot has not forgotten her real purpose in going to the outer district slum.

She introduced the compressed biscuit manufacturing technology from the Northern Territory, establishing a compressed biscuit factory in the lower district, with a daily production of dozens of tons of biscuits.

These small biscuits can be turned into a thick bowl of porridge when soaked, and after consuming it, one wouldn’t feel hungry for an entire day. For ordinary people, it’s an excellent option to stave off hunger.

After all, in the city district of Langton now, even bran and rice husks are difficult to find, let alone decent bread and food.

A considerable portion of Langton’s lower district residents rely on aid from the Empire and the church to survive.

At this moment, Perfikot began distributing compressed biscuits, which didn’t have a significant impact on ordinary people. It merely made them slightly fuller compared to receiving wheat porridge, without improving their life.

Of course, for Langton’s city government and the Empire itself, Perfikot’s biscuit technology significantly improved the dire situation faced by the Imperial Center.

At least, the Empire’s administrative staff no longer needed to worry about food issues and could divert a portion of compressed biscuits to aid the outer district slum.

This was just the beginning of Perfikot’s plan for the slum.

After feeding a portion of the outer district’s poor with compressed biscuits, Perfikot recruited those who had regained some energy as laborers to build defenses for the Guard Army stationed in the lower district.

Perfikot’s principle is never to let people eat without work; it was thus in the Northern Territory, and it is the same in Langton.

People in the lower district, after receiving aid, would be involved in constructing things like church shelters, Energy Towers, and dungeons, and the outer district’s poor were also to be put to use.

However, these people were not high-quality laborers, and expecting them to do technical work was unrealistic, but putting them to construct defense works for the Guard Army was just right.

The construction of this era certainly could not be compared with Perfikot’s knowledge of highly developed constructions.

Even with Perfikot’s assistance, the workers and technicians of this era couldn’t build something akin to the Maginot Line, at most digging trenches and stacking barricades.

While building more defensive works like bastions wasn’t impossible, the Guard Army was merely stationed in Langton’s lower district, not here to turn it into a battlefield.

Therefore, digging some trenches, building barricades and bunkers were quite sufficient.

The paupers from the outer district approached these tasks with great enthusiasm, even though these constructions were somewhat meant to counter them. They were still fiercely engaged in the building process.

In these times, having a job to feed one’s family was already fortunate; who had the luxury to worry about anything more?

Moreover, these uneducated paupers lacked the cognition to ponder whether the defense works built by the Guard Army were against them; they didn’t have the knowledge to understand such complex matters.

With relief and work, the situation in the outer district slum began to improve; at least, the streets weren’t filled with carts dragging away starved corpses, and the roadside corpse-like pedestrians were significantly fewer.

Most paupers were barely managing a subsistence through city government aid and working for the Guard Army, which for many was a happy situation.

This led a considerable number of them to abandon following the trouble-making heretical sects and return to living peacefully.

For ordinary people, beliefs were intangible. What truly made them obedient and compliant was often merely a bowl of porridge that could fill their bellies.

With that bowl of porridge, they could be the most compliant citizens or the most unruly rebels; the difference was who provided the porridge and who prevented them from having even a bowl.

When the Empire did not care for them, allowing them to freeze or starve, these impoverished lower-class individuals naturally turned to follow those suspiciously motivated heretical sects for food.

Even if they knew those sects would turn them into sacrificial offerings, cannon fodder against the Empire, as long as there was food, they would willingly follow them.

However, when the Empire provided work and food aid, filling their stomachs, they naturally wouldn’t risk being sacrificed or killed by the Empire’s war machines to follow heretical sects for food.

The vast majority simply sought sustenance and didn’t genuinely believe in the salvation promised by heretical sects preaching faith in the Divine.

The church similarly preached that belief in the Father would bring protection and salvation, but the people hadn’t seen any angel from the Father descends to save them from starvation.

Therefore, for most individuals, spoken grandeur paled compared to a warm bowl of porridge.