Pei Luo sipped his tea, leaned on the soft lord's chair, and let out a long breath.
More than two months have passed since he took over Longsong Fortress, and he finds that he likes this hall more and more. The step-up structure allowed him to look down from the main seat to the officials and squires standing below, and this feeling of power was satisfying to him.
In the first month, some small nobles would jump out to openly question themselves, or secretly plan riots. Of course, the behind-the-scenes figures who provoked them to come forward were from the big families of the elk and the wolves. Peiluo obeyed his father's advice, and sent all the troubled commoners or underground rats without titles to the gallows, while the minor nobles with titles were imprisoned and expelled from the West after the family paid the ransom.
This set of thunder tactics was implemented, and the situation quickly subsided. After all, with the exception of the Honeysuckle family, the knights of the other families have all been taken to Border Town, and it is impossible to oppose Pelor's policy on the bright side. Afterwards, he divided part of the interests of the fortress to compensate for the loss of the big family during the capture, so that all the nobles temporarily formed a relatively stable interest group.
At present, in addition to 30% of the fort's income being turned over to Border Town, the remaining 70% of the income is used to maintain the operation of the city, 20% to appease the rest of the great nobles, and the Hermon territory gets the remaining 20%.
Today, the portrait hanging behind the lord's seat has been replaced by Duke Lane with the fourth prince, Roland Wimbledon. He is looking forward to hanging his own portrait of Pelor Hermon one day.
If you can completely own the Changsong Fortress, your own counties can be connected with the fortress and become a veritable duchy territory, and 50% of the surrender and appeasement can be saved and invested in the fortress's business and trade, in exchange for more money s return.
Of course, the premise is that Roland can successfully ascend the throne and become the king of the whole territory of Greycastle.
"Sir," a guard walked into the lord's hall and handed a letter, "it's news from Border Town."
Hearing the word Border Town, Pei Luo immediately sat up straight.
He took the envelope and shook the thin papyrus flat. From the poor quality of the paper, it could be seen that the letter came from the eyeliner he had placed in the serf ranks.
The result of the battle more than two months ago was unbelievable. Although Pei Luo did not go there in person, he heard a bizarre story from his father. In order to find out the reason for the Duke's failure, he arranged many henchmen in the hands of the people sent to the town. They disguised themselves as craftsmen, herdsmen or serfs and sent the information they saw back to the fortress one by one.
He believes that other families will certainly do the same.
But so far, apart from the two disguised as serfs who are still sending new information every month, those craftsmen and herdsmen have not heard from them, as if they have disappeared.
Did they betray themselves, or were they all eradicated after being discovered by the prince
He shook his head, focusing on the secret letter.
The content of the letter was written in charcoal, and the text was crooked, and there were traces of being soaked in water in some places. It seemed that it was written surreptitiously while working.
The first paragraph said that an iron tower of unknown purpose was being built on the banks of the Chishui River. On the top of the tower is a huge iron can, three of which have been erected so far, each of which is close to the height of the fortress wall. It seems that the blacksmiths completed the production of the iron tower in the town, and when it was transported to the river, it was already a whole. Then there would be First Army soldiers standing up baffles around the tower, and by the next day it would magically be erected.
Building... This is the word again, Pei Luo thought. The last secret letter was the same. Just looking at the information, I felt that the prince was constantly building the town. Does His Highness have to spend all the golden dragons scavenged from the fortress castle in one breath to be reconciled? And the purpose of the iron tower is still unknown... You must know that the spies among the hidden serfs are not real serfs, but well-informed guards. If it is a sentry tower or an arrow tower, he must be able to see it at a glance.
Probably the iron tower has not been completely completed, it is hard to judge, Pei Luo shook his head, maybe there will be more detailed information next month.
He moved his gaze to the next paragraph.
It was written in the letter that a large fleet of merchants left east after staying at the town's dock for a week, and its ownership was unknown. Large piles of ore ingots and saltpeter were unloaded from the ship during the stay.
Buying saltpeter is easy to understand. It will become very hot in the second month in summer. It takes a lot of saltpeter to cool down the castle. It can also be used to refrigerate wine and juice. As embarrassed as the farmer in the field.
But the purchase of ore ingots made Peiro feel a little surprised. Border Town was originally an ore production area. I remember that before the month of the demon, when he went to the town as a messenger, Prince Roland exaggerated his words and said that the total amount of ore for sale would be doubled. , As a result, instead of exporting ore, now they have to import ore ingots
Thinking of the iron tower at the same height as the fortress wall in the previous paragraph, he found that he could not understand more and more what His Royal Highness wanted to do.
However, when Pei Luo saw the last paragraph of the secret letter, he was stunned.
How many open-air theatre performances have been held in the square in the last two weeks
No tickets are charged, the play is unheard of, and serfs are encouraged to watch. What surprised him the most was that among the performers there was the star of the West, Miss May, who had disappeared recently!
what's going on
The disappearance of May is a big news in the fortress recently, and several dramas that should have starred in her have changed the female roles, and the nobles left halfway to protest. The theater had to issue a notice, claiming that May left the theater without telling anyone, and her whereabouts are unknown. As soon as the news came out, the drama-loving aristocrats in the Western Region were in an uproar.
In the end, she ran to Border Town? There is no theatre there! And performing for commoners and serfs... Pei Luo couldn't imagine such a scene for a while, and the Miss May in his mind was not an approachable actor.
After thinking about it again and again, he decided to write a letter to His Royal Highness Roland to formally ask him about the matter. As a drama lover, not to mention that I haven't seen the wonderful performance of Star of the West for a long time, I even have a lot less chance to invite Shirley. Since the play was publicly performed in the town square, it is not surprising that it was seen by a trader. It happened that the trader was from Changge Fortress, so the news came to his ears. Thinking so, it should not expose the hidden serfs. Guard.
Just as Pei Luo was about to let his attendants draft the text, a knight quickly walked into the hall and said anxiously, "Sir, the guards at the East Gate Watchtower have found that a team of knights is approaching the fortress!"
"Knight? Can you tell where it came from?" He stood up suddenly.
"The other party is holding a high tower and two-gun flag, my lord," replied the knight, "if it is not impersonation, they should be the troops of the new king."(.)