Rand returned to Lady Sarah's residence with a sense of gain and shock, and then took some time to sort out today's conversation, including the parts of the paper and the information recorded in Skynet.

Unfortunately, the mysterious gentleman still didn't take the initiative to look for him, and although Rand wanted to see him immediately, he had to wait.

And while waiting, of course, he will continue to investigate, for example, Adolf revealed to him that the general strike will start tomorrow.

Asturias has not experienced strikes, large and small strikes, there have been more than a dozen in the past few decades, small factories have sued unscrupulous factory owners, large factories, and even joint strikes held by a certain industry, the largest two are to demand **** rights, disqualification from elections, property and tax requirements.

Some of these strikes are successful and some are unsuccessful, and it probably depends on the energy of the object of appeal, such as complaining about the factory owner, it depends on the factory owner's connections and how much money he is willing to take out to eliminate the disaster, otherwise the kingdom does not mind the implementation of justice;

The general strike in Adolf sounds like it was not small, as if several factories in St. Quentin were preparing to respond to a general strike of mining and industrial workers in the county of Fatorimae.

There is a medium-sized black rock mine in the county of Fadolime, and by virtue of this unique advantage, the county of Fadolimé has since become a new industrial area of the kingdom, and there are quite a number of workers there, and a strike has been held recently. And this time it lasted a particularly long time. Workers in other areas are ready to respond.

After Rand sorted out the information. He immediately forced himself to sleep, and even if Lady Sarah kept teasing him with a little resentment, he was not moved, for tomorrow's investigation might be more important.

When he woke up again in the morning, he quickly prepared to go out and head to the place Adolf had mentioned, where the general strike would begin, where the workers would gather. Then the strike march began.

However, when Rand arrived, it was empty, there was no one, and Adolf did not see it.

Rand did not believe that he had been deceived, and he waited there for another hour, until the time had passed, and still did not see any workers' rally.

Until this time, Rand still didn't believe that Adolf was a liar, and it seemed that something had happened. But what kind of accident can make so many workers miss the appointment together, he faintly has a kind of uneasiness. It felt like something big was about to happen.

He thought about it for a moment, and hurried to the factory where Adolf used to work, where the Fox manager was in charge.

As soon as he arrived nearby, he felt that something unusual had been added to the factory.

It's a real soldier, not the usual security guards or police patrolling here.

He walked over and was immediately stopped by the soldiers, who had to claim that he was a friend of one of the workers, Adolf, and had come to look for him.

However, the soldier's answer was astonishing, telling him to leave immediately.

Of course, Rand would not leave there, but negotiated softly and hard, but the soldier's attitude towards him quickly hardened, and if he hadn't claimed to be a journalist in the first place, I am afraid that the soldier would have arrested him.

Although the negotiations were inconclusive, Rand first saw that these soldiers were not fake, but the real St. Quentin garrison, which belonged to the eighth regiment of the garrison, although this garrison was only the worst of the three corps-level units in St. Quentin, but it was still a regular army.

Secondly, from a few words, he heard that it seemed that something had happened to this factory, and here was a company of the 8th Regiment, which had been ordered to rush to maintain law and order and ensure normal production.

How could the workers who were preparing for a general strike be honest enough to produce normally, and that the night had passed, the factory had been dispatched by regular troops to maintain order, which made Rand very uneasy.

It wasn't until the Fox manager arrived that someone spoke to him.

"It's you, what are you doing here?" Manager Fox should have rushed here after hearing the news, and it was Rand who didn't want to see it.

In the face of his rebuke, Rand remained calm and continued to claim that he was a journalist, a friend of the Adolf from yesterday, and had come to see him.

"Friend?" Manager Fox looked at him in a circle, and suddenly smiled, "You probably don't know what happened, do you?"

He took a few steps back, then pointed at Rand and said, "Please arrest him, the workers' troubles may have something to do with him, I saw him go out with Adolf yesterday." Also, I suspect that he is not a liar at all, but a representative of the workers who are responsible for liaising between the various factories. ”

Rand sensed that something was wrong, but the bad thing was that the soldiers heard Manager Fox's words and really immediately surrounded him, surrounding him in the middle.

Immediately, more than a dozen muskets were aimed at him, and the soldiers at the head should be the squad leader of this squad, and shouted orders at him not to resist.

Rand knew that he was in trouble, just these dozen soldiers, he was still sure to get out of their control, he was a mage after all, and he was also an arcane master, not only did he have a formal education in a magic school, but the last time he was in the sea, the mysterious gentleman instructed him to escape from death, so that he learned some new methods in addition to the orthodox mage casting spells, as if opening a new door.

But Rand did not resist, as a member of the Jimenez family, no one knew better than him not to easily oppose the government representing the kingdom, and the army in front of him was also part of this force, and it was a violent part.

It's not a big deal to fight with these more than a dozen soldiers, but it means that he is fighting violently, which will intensify the contradictions, and the other party will attack him unscrupulously.

So he didn't resist, but calmly raised his hands and said: "It's true that I'm not a tabloid reporter, but I have a friend named Hocho Bernadotte, if you know this surname." Please help me inform him. “

The soldiers saw that he did not resist. Relax a little. However, Hocho was skeptical about what he said, and although the Bernadotte family was a little famous, it was not yet known to everyone.

But fortunately, the Fox manager was around, and he knew the surname Bernadotte.

"Do you know anyone from the Bernadotte family?" he asked.

"Yes, Hoqiu has been my friend for many years, and he won't leave me alone. Rand said heavily, today's incident was a bit embarrassing, and he didn't want to bring out Jimenez. Otherwise, even if it is solved, it will reach the ears of his grandfather or father, and his laissez-faire life will be over for about this time, and he doesn't want to do this.

At the request of Manager Fox, the soldiers temporarily detained him instead of taking him away and putting him in a certain place.

Rand then had to wait for Manager Fox to help him contact Hocho under the watchful eye of two soldiers.

About an hour later, Huo Qiu arrived in a hurry.

Then, of course, he took the people away, and at Rand's request, he did not reveal his true identity, but assured Manager Fox and the army soldiers that his friend was not a bad person in the name of Bernadotte. It was not a workers' liaison deputy, and there was no instigation of strikes.

Rand got into Hocho's carriage. Huo Qiu's forced smile finally broke out in the carriage.

"You're smiling so much. Rand said angrily.

"I'm sorry, but I was so surprised, when someone came to inform me that a friend of mine named Rand was being held in a factory and told me to go and pick up someone. Huo Qiu laughed, "I say, what the hell is going on, how did you end up there?" Even if you are a mage, you should not go to these places now, don't you know that something big happened last night, the kingdom ordered the army to quell an attempted general strike, declaring that the attempted strike was illegal, and it was used to overthrow the kingdom and endanger the public, so not only did many people arrest, but in order to ensure the normal production of the factory, a division of the garrison corps was now dispersed to the large and medium-sized factory of St. Quentin to stabilize order. ”

"How so?" Rand said in surprise, he didn't expect it to end like this overnight, which meant that the government had prepared for a strike, and then used thunderous measures, which was completely different from the past treatment, and it was so tough that people were scared.

Huo Qiu shrugged his shoulders, "What have you been doing lately? Didn't you care about your family? Didn't you go to the big and small banquets and balls in the city?" If you have participated, you should know that the economy of the kingdom has been very bad for the past few months, and then the strike has started again, and there is the most trouble in the county of Fatori and the mine, and then the mine owners organized the guards to suppress it, and then it is said that the workers there organized the defeat and hijacking of the mine owners' convoys, and they not only killed more than 200 people, robbed them of their weapons, and openly expelled the mine owners, but also tried to sell the black rock and other minerals that had been mined before in order to buy weapons and food, and declared that the mine belonged to them. God, where is this still a strike, this is a robbery, this is a robber, more shameful than a thief. ”

He continued: "It may be that this incident prompted the kingdom to decide to deal with it with a tough stance that it has not had before, what happened to us here last night should be that the workers had organized themselves to respond to the workers' strike in Friedome, but I don't want the kingdom to be prepared, not to mention the secret guards, even the police department is not too difficult to grasp a certain trace of them, in short, it was ruthless on the eve of their launch. Those who took the lead in making trouble were arrested first, these people should have been thrown into prison now, and those who resisted on the spot were said to have been directly killed by the garrison, and the rest of those who were willing to earn wages have now obediently returned to the factory location, and those who are not willing to make money can go home, but they are absolutely not allowed to gather, otherwise it will be regarded as a disturbance. ”

"Isn't the cabinet worried about parliamentary inquiries?" Rand said angrily.

"Questioning? Perhaps, after all, there have been many deaths, but the council will certainly not be on the side of those poor and lazy people, who do not know how to work hard, but think of getting something for nothing, and organize trouble, which is a danger to our kingdom no matter how you look at it. Huo Qiu said unconcernedly, he was worried about his family, "Don't worry, the council must also protect our interests." ”

Rand didn't say anything more, and the carriage continued to move until it took them to a hotel.

"Let's have a bite to eat. Huo Qiu got out of the carriage and said as he walked: "Hola Deguna is also inside, I was about to have breakfast with her, but I came here for your business, and I didn't get your permission, so I didn't tell her anything when I came out, and she will complain again in a while." ”

Rand entered the private room of this hotel, although it was breakfast, but Huo Qiu was not sloppy at all, he liked the food here very much, so in the past month, he has almost become a regular visitor here, and brought Hola Deguna to enjoy it-

While Rand was having breakfast with Hochu and his women, the Asturian parliament did convene an urgent inquiry to demand an explanation from the cabinet for an explanation for the use of the army to suppress the workers.

However, as Hoqiu said, there was almost no need for the questioning, because nearly a third of the members who attended the questioning were expressing their support and approval of the Cabinet's decision to the other parliaments during the questioning, and the parliamentarians who learned the reason also praised Prime Minister Benjamin for his bravery and decisiveness as a defender of the kingdom.

The question meeting ended quickly, and the Cabinet asked the Parliament to convene a formal meeting immediately and agreed to the Cabinet declaring a special period for the whole country to impose emergency controls.

This is not a trivial problem, because once this power is granted to the Cabinet, the power of the Cabinet will be very large during the emergency control period agreed by the Parliament, and there will be many things that can be carried out directly without first going through the Parliament, so the Parliament will have to quarrel again.

In addition to this, Benjamin had a more important matter to raise with the incoming parliamentarians and ask for it to be discussed as soon as possible.

It was a proposal, and it was the first step in a much larger plan, and that first step was called the Rock Crystal and Metals Community Treaty. (To be continued.) )