Ceasers idea was preposterous, capturing a town with forty five fighting men which only twenty of them were professional soldiers.
But the refugees were on a row, they were eating up everything Ceaser was telling them.
Soon preparations for taking the town of Patagonia was made, Ceaser had made them strip the prisoners naked, tie them and have them take lead in directing them to the town .
The refugee force apart from the knights were no longer like a ragtag group, they had at least chain mail and breastplates sourced from their captives and those they had slain in battle.
The refuges at this time had about sixty horses captured from the enemy, this greatly helped logistics and kept them free from unnecessary fatigue.
They marched steadily during the mornings , and rested at night . Two days later they were in the vicinity of the town , just open with no form of security or guards around.
As they moved through the town, they saw evidences of a battle, some burnt shacks and traced of blood. Before they could make any sense of the situation, an arrow buzzed by and landed in front of the horses sending them into panic but were immediately calmed down by their riders.
" Make no step further or the next arrow goes in your skull." A man said, pointing an arrow at Ceaser.
" We mean no harm." Ceaser said " but we want to know what happened here."
" What else , we tore if the chains binding us and took out pound of flesh from those Blackthorn bastards". The man replied, he had a sense of pride in what they had accomplished. It was also as Ceaser thought, leaving one hundred soldiers together with five thousand disgruntled serfs and slaves teeming with rage and hate was a recipe for disaster.
" Why don't I come with you so that you can take me to the person in charge." Ceaser said and immediately his followers rejected the idea, Ceaser was at the moment too important to be left in danger but Ceaser disagreed , took off his weapon and armor except for a dagger and followed the man.
They walked for a while till they reached a building that seemed in contrast to the poverty of the town.
Inside the stone house, Ceaser met with the man in charge, Zack. Zack was the person who had organized the revolt . Before he was a soldier in the Alfonse army, he was a baker and was forced into conscription to push back the Blackthorn advance . Due to their failures, Zack had become a slave whose duty was to tend to the mines .
" Who are you ?" Zack asked in a gruff voice. The dirt and blood on his clothes indicated that the battle was still fresh.
" My name is Augustus Caesar, and I believe you're in my debt for your victory." Ceaser replied.
" And how is that?" Zack asked, clearly amused at the boy in front of him.
" Well if Inca had not left to attack me , you might not have had the opportunity for your uprising."
Immediately Zacks countenance changed as he muttered, " you're him, you're the one .
I heard you slaughtered everyone they sent to capture you."
" yes " Ceaser replied, " And I have brought back captives from them that sought to defeat me."
Now that the situation was cordial, Sir Alfred and Butrus joined Ceaser who was with Zack and some other men from the mines.
" Believe it or not Zach , you have started a rebellion so what is your plan moving forward ." Ceaser asked .
Zack however was stunned, he had acted with impulse and had not thought of what followed after their rebellion. Seeing Zacks countenance Ceaser took it as an opportunity to solidify himself in a position of power .
" It seems like you didn't think this through." Said Ceaser, " we are not too late to rectify the situation, following my instructions guarantees that our lives are not out at risk.
So tell me about the town , the mines everything."
The information Ceaser received on the town of Patagonia was that the mines produced mainly iron, copper,tin, salt and some silver. It was very far from any town or city as it took two weeks to reach the nearest town. The population now was at four thousand five hundred , three thousand of them were men the remaining one thousand five hundred were women and children.
Truthfully, Ceaser was disappointed as he thought that the town would at least be fortified to enable a smooth defence . Now he has to fortify the city himself or risk extermination.
On the bright side, the town has skilled professionals so any construction he was going to undergo was going to be relatively easier.
He had two options, to build fortifications out of stone or build fortifications out of wood.
The stone fortifications were by all ramifications the greatest but it was both expensive and time consuming to build plus winter was just months away. Wood however was plenty , easy to manipulate and people without any skills could easily learn the basics of working with wood. The only con her was the combustibility of wood.
Fortifications were nessesary but meant nothing if people died from disease and cold, so he also needed to provide condusive housing for the people of Patagonia.
When he had formulated a condusive plan, he came to Zack .
" How long till the rebellion is found out?" Ceaser asked.
" Well, they send people once every three months to take the ore that we have mined and they don't come during the winter months so I guess we have about three months till the rebellion is discovered " Zack replied.
And just then an idea struck Ceaser hard, he has just noticed that he could actually cause chaos with the materials he had in the vicinity and the knowledge he had in his brains.
The Blackthorn empire would be in for a bumpy ride soon, because they were about to be introduced to the power of gunpowder. Ceaser has already made up his mind, he was going to produce cannons.