"You know about the Eagle Rock incident, right?" The mayor of Dodge mentions this term of events that Andy had learned about before.

"Yes, but I don't know exactly how Burnham Spring, for example, was ignited." Andy responded, frankly speaking, when he learned the story of this incident, he felt that the impact of this incident on NcR in the east was no less than other incidents, and the surviving soldiers such as Diane did not seem to have come out of the shadows, and he vaguely felt that this incident was very likely to have a certain impact on the basic force of NcR's operation in the east: the army.

Mayor Dodge leaned back on the couch and groaned for a moment, his face showing some remorse.

"In 2238, the Fifth Engineering Company unearthed huge reserves of coal from the underground mines in the ruins of the deserted Yingyan Town, and later even suspected that there might be oil and radioactive minerals deeper underground. As soon as the news broke, the place where the birds don't poop suddenly became strategically important, so I signed the charter as quickly as I could. I had the army take over and start building all kinds of infrastructure to prepare for long-term mining. ”

"Our projection of power brought the old ruined town back to life at once, and in order to get everything back on track as quickly as possible, I not only ordered the company commander, Colonel Robert, to take charge of the 5th Engineering Company himself, but even sent my most important lieutenant there to take charge of the initial administration. We need manpower, a lot of manpower, and despite all the efforts we have made to attract as many displaced people as possible, there are not enough people. ”

"So I began to think crookedly, I asked for a group of 'suitable people' from the local side, and I found some misdemeanor criminals from the Black Canyon Prison and sent them over, now I think about it, this is all a measure that should not be taken, my momentary rush has laid the root of the problem in the future, but I really needed the resources there at that time, with those resources, railway transportation and settlement networks can take shape." Andy listened quietly, but a doubt popped up in his heart.

"I've heard about this before, some people think that Colonel Robert's incompetence led to the army's lack of control over Burnham Springs, which gave the gangs space and time to form, and the poor working conditions in the Eagle Rock Mine were the direct cause, what do you think?" Mayor Dodge frowned when he heard the word 'incompetent'.

"My opinion... First of all, allow me to defend Colonel Robert, and it is not easy for the soldiers of the 5th Engineering Company to be responsible not only for geological exploration and construction work, but also for maintaining stability away from Hoover Dam and Fort Ashdashed; He and his soldiers have been doing a great job, and thanks to the tremendous pressure they have been able to complete one task after another, we have the possibility of using the railway to connect many settlements and form a network of settlements in the Eastern Special Administrative Region in the future. ”

"At that time, there was chaos within the NcR, and people in some areas protested that the government was not tough enough in the friction with the Iron Brotherhood in Maxson State, which led to the loss of their interests, and what was originally a small movement in some parts of the country gradually intensified. The mainland began to order the repatriation of 'redundant' soldiers from the east, but anyone who has personally been to the Eastern Special Administrative Region should understand that there is no such thing as a 'superfluous' here, and any redeployment would be fatal to the stability of the Eastern Special Administrative Region. ”

"Colonel Robert was left alone in the absence of a major general, and the rest of the soldiers had already been sent to various places in batches, and it was impossible for him to go to Burnham Springs to reinforce him for a while, and I should have noticed how terrible the situation was, but at that time there was another major event that seriously hampered me, and I had no time to take care of it, and that was the great reduction of local transfer payments." Mayor Dodge frowned at the thought of the follow-up of this incident, because until now he is still deeply affected by this incident, and now in the Eastern Special District, the NcR banknotes have become butt wiping paper, and the general equivalent has returned to the bottle caps that have been replaced before the NcR mainland from the very beginning, and the already stretched Eastern SAR government can only rely on people's breath, mainly relying on the tax payment of the red caravan to maintain daily expenses.

"We worry about money every day, the Eastern Special Zone still needs a period of input to produce profits, my master plan is only partially completed, the construction of the railway network has just begun, I have repeatedly argued with the local authorities, hoping that they will not cut fiscal spending, at that time I really didn't have the energy to pay attention to the stability and law and order of a small settlement below, so I asked my deputy, the young deputy mayor, to deal with this matter on my behalf, but I underestimated the problems that were happening in Burnham Springs."

"I thought that the problems of Burnham Springs would only need a little pacification to get back to normal, and who would have thought that what I was waiting for was his death." He lifted his hand to a black-and-white photograph of the fireplace in the corner, and Andy looked over and thought to himself that was the politician who had been killed.

Looking into the eyes of Mayor Dodger, he was still a little emotional, even after many years.

"Those thugs! Mob! Robin really wanted to sit down and talk to them sincerely, and when the railroad was built to Burnham Springs, the coal mines there would be able to quickly follow the railroad to the entire eastern region and even the mainland in the west, and everything would be thriving, as long as he endured it for a short time.... I admit that the working conditions of the miners are a bit harsh, but I provide them with shelter, clothing and even cheap food, and those who are desperate in their homeland should not be grateful to me for giving them this opportunity to start over? ”

But what about their response? A bomb? Andy listened to the sad questioning of the Dodge mayor and didn't know how to answer him, maybe from his point of view, this is indeed the truth, but if it is someone else's turn, it will be another reason.

"So you later ordered retaliation?" Mayor Dodge nodded hatefully.

"Yes, I was so carried away by anger that I can't forget the mutilated body that was blown up by dynamite.... So under the shroud of this emotion, I was wrong again and again. I demanded that the Fifth Engineering Company muster all its forces to Burnham Springs, and instructed Colonel Robert to make amends for his mistakes, and I to take out all the pain of Robin's death, and to scold him and threaten to expel him from his post, and to exterminate the so-called Bomb Gangs entrenched in Burnham Springs at all costs and as quickly as possible. ”

"The price was indeed painful, Robin's revenge was taken, but the Fifth Engineering Company was almost completely destroyed." Andy can afford goosebumps when he hears it, and there is a sea of corpses and blood in such a simple sentence.

"What happened then?" Mayor Dodge closed his eyes and shook his head, this incident was an eternal pain in his life.

"I later read the report of the incident, and blamed me for pushing Robert too hard, and he did get to Burnham Springs as fast as he had promised, with the entire Fifth Engineering Company, and surrounded the thugs, who had no choice but to flee into the Eagle Rock mines. The soldiers pursued it, the marauders hid in the depths of the mine and resisted, many were shot and killed underground, and it would be a long time and a great sacrifice to continue the siege. Later, the miners of Burnham Springs told him that there were other exits to the underground mines, and that if they relented, the thugs hiding in the mines would find an opportunity to escape. ”

"Robert was so anxious that he ordered the soldiers to throw grenades into the mine, which was insane, and he wanted to bet that those people would surrender out of fear and come out of the mine themselves."

"As a result, the grenades detonated the stockpile of explosives that the bandits had moved down the mine, causing a horrific explosion, and then igniting the underground veins, so that the fire has not been completely extinguished until now." The two sat there in silence for a few moments.

Andy finally broke the silence.

"And then?" Mayor Dodge's face was ashen, and his voice even became hoarse.

"Later.... The number of the 5th Engineering Company had to be cancelled because there was not one survivor among the soldiers in the disaster, and most of those who survived suffered from severe post-traumatic stress disorder and mental problems, or became disabled. After that, they all left the army one after another, and many people even began to hate NcR because of this, and refused to compensate and evaporated from the world.... As for Colonel Robert, he committed suicide by drinking bullets. ”

"It was the first mistake I made." Andy shuddered down his spine, this was the first time he had heard from the person in power that the story came from a higher perspective, the immediate consequences and subsequent effects of this mistake were so horrific and bad, but the most frightening thing was that every decision made by everyone in the development of the story was in line with their own logic, and in the end it produced a result that no one wanted to see.

The invisible lines hidden behind these little things and people with personality can be said to be the embodiment of fate.

Even if you turn back the clock, everyone will still think the same way, and things will still start the same way.

Nothing has changed. Mayor Dodge continued his statement with a numb look on his face, as if the office had been turned into a confessional.

"The second mistake I made was with the railroad workers I had transferred from New California, and in order to lure them to the dangerous East to build railroads, I signed contracts with every railroad engineer who was willing to go far beyond the local NcR price. I was very wrong in my prediction of the future, not least because I didn't expect the Brotherhood of Steel to dare to wage an all-out war on its own soil, and their rebellion had upheaved the entire NcR. At the same time, the Brotherhood of Steel branch in the Eastern District also responded to the call of their headquarters and began a direct attack on the city of Hoover Dam. ”

"Our forces are exhausted, their firepower is much stronger than ours, the gates of Hoover Dam have been rebuilt many times, it is often blown up by those guys using rockets or bombs, although because of the difference in numbers, every time they attack frontally, we are repulsed, but this defensive pressure also cuts off the possibility of mutual assistance between Hoover Dam and other garrisons, especially the garrison at Fort Ashdash, for a long time, any caravan going out of Hoover Dam will be killed, and the corpses will be burned to ashes."

"At that time, all the financial expenditures had to be military first, and by the year 2248, when most of the railway engineering team had completed their three-year period, according to the contract signed at that time, I should have paid the promised salary immediately, but I couldn't do it. I know they're desperate to die, but I just can't do it..... I can only break the contract and owe them money first, they curse me, but they will not know what I have done for it, and a shipment of gold will finally be delivered to the NcR National Bank of the Eastern Special District after my repeated tug-of-war with the mainland. ”

"On the one hand, they don't want to put their eggs in one basket to avoid the Brotherhood of Steel from causing fatal damage to the financial system at once, and on the other hand, it is also a response to my long-term request for help, and this gold will be used as an important ballast stone to help me build the financial system of the Eastern Special Zone, and if it can be finalized, we will no longer need local transfers, and even feed back to the local country one day, and at that time, it will be easier to pay the workers." Andy heard this and knew what had happened, and the salvage crews in Dog City had told him.

"I've heard about this too, the 370 robbery, right?" The Dodge Mayor snorted his pipe-holding mouth.

"yes, I'm famous now, it was big news back then, and it shook the whole NcR. Even if it is not all the gold reserves of NcR, the collapse of people's confidence in the NcR yuan is 10,000 times more terrible than the loss of gold..."

"The National Counter-Terrorism Agency's task force came from home, and I thought they were coming to remove me, but they told me that unless I died, there would be no new successor in China."

"I felt that I was mainly responsible not only for the failure of the financial system in the Eastern Special Administrative Region, but also for the intensification of the turmoil in the homeland, and I spent several nights in my bedroom with a pistol, wondering if it would be better to die, and Major Fleming reminded me that the gold might have only been hidden by the accomplices of the robbers, so I ordered all the prisoners to be tortured in the Black Canyon Prison, but the result was not known."

"I was in a daze, and came up with a bad idea, I thought they must be keeping their mouth shut about the hiding place in order to divide the gold equally after they were released from prison, so what if I deliberately released them and followed them? The members of Project 370 were formerly honest workers, and it is likely that they will not be able to bear the desire to divide the gold after leaving prison. Andy also felt a little speechless when he heard this idea, and it seemed to be logically reasonable, but a closer look will find that this idea lacks conclusive clue evidence, and it is bound to be a huge risk when it is actually implemented.

"So the plan was really executed?" Mayor Dodge covers his face.

"Yes.... It was the only way I could think of recovering the gold at the time, it was 2249 years old, but it turned out to be a mistake, first the soldiers I sent to open the door deliberately opened the wrong cell by chance, and released another group of more vicious people, which led to a great escape from Black Canyon Prison; When I finally started following the fugitives, they scattered everywhere, and I understood that there was no such thing as a golden hideout, and that all I had done was to give a large group of criminals a chance to escape from prison. ”

"And after that? As if God was joking with me, a group of guys called Caesar's Legion that came out of nowhere from the east destroyed Fort Ashed by the division and mobilization of our garrisons in various places due to the division and mobilization of the Iron Brotherhood, and then hit all the way towards Hoover Dam, fortunately those strange guys in rugby armor have primitive weapons, and the Iron Brotherhood has no tacit understanding with them, otherwise Hoover Dam City would no longer exist today. ”

"This dire situation forced me to initiate a state of emergency in Hoover Dam City, which made the already huge governance pressure even greater, and we began to gradually abandon the settlements that were under control, and remote areas such as Dog City automatically lost control after the fall of Arashedburg."

"As if this was not enough, the connection between the local people and us has been completely cut off." Mayor Dodge looked at Andy and spread his hands.

"Despair, despair, everybody is in despair, and the Hoover Dam has been an island since then, and even our bullets have been run out in continuous battles."