Trade Conflict

Kevin leafed through the loss report and suddenly thought of something. "You just said that a small town on the outskirts of Namur could mobilize more than fifty Police officers?"

Captain Pickering nodded. "Yes, Mr. Kevin. And that day, they even kept more than thirty people at the station as reserves."

"There were that many?" Kevin was greatly surprised. Even in the United Kingdom, a police station in a town like that would have, at most, twenty or thirty Police officers.

Pickering spread his hands. "That was nothing. There were more than eight hundred Police officers in Namur itself, and the Mons police station even had over nine hundred.

"Besides Police officers, the police stations in Wallonia also had two other positions: 'Auxiliary Defense Officer' and 'Service Team.' We had always thought the latter two merely handled odd jobs. Only after this operation failed did we discover that, aside from lacking uniforms, they were no different from regular Police officers."

Indeed, for Wallonia's stability and the strength of his control over it, Joseph had equipped the region with more than six thousand Police officers, intending to use them as an army. But in order not to provoke Flanders and the Austrian government, he had changed the titles of some Police officers, leaving only a little over thirteen hundred visible on paper.

Kevin hurriedly asked, "Then how many Police officers, or people resembling Police officers, are there in all of Wallonia?"

"Probably over four thousand."

Pickering immediately narrowed his eyes. "Wallonia has a population of less than a million, yet it has so many Police officers...

"Training and maintaining them must cost an enormous sum."

Captain Pickering added, "And their response speed and shooting skills are both extremely high."

Kevin nodded and instructed him, "Immediately begin investigating the recruitment, training, and