Forty-six days.
Baron Sunderland sat quietly on the single bed that belonged to him, facing the wall, counting the notches on the wall from the beginning to the end, and then from the end to the beginning.
He has spent forty-six days in this cell.
As a member of the southern nobles who responded to Earl Hossman's army, he knew that he was very lucky. Due to his low title, he was not qualified to be close to Earl Hossman's team, so he narrowly escaped the shelling on the gravel ridge , and later also because of his low title, he was thrown far away by the large army when he fled, and he became one of the first nobles captured by the Cecils, but he suffered less from the hardships of fleeing day and night in the wilderness. some ordeal.
But he doesn't know how long his "luck" can last.
The defeat of the noble coalition seems to have happened in the last century. That exciting expedition that ended in tragedy has now become a nightmare that was deliberately avoided but kept replaying in his mind. Baron Sunderland knew that, Except for the Cecil family and a small number of people who loyal to Cecil in the entire southern region, all the nobles are gone, even though he had a little fantasy when he was just locked in this cell He was defeated in the follow-up battle, and finally reached a stalemate reconciliation with the nobles of the southern border, but what he finally waited for was one new "prisoner" after another.
Familiar faces were thrown into prison cells, and each face meant that a new piece of land fell into the hands of the Cecils. When more than half of the nobles in the southern region appeared in this "prisoner-of-war camp", The Viscount Sunderland accepted the fact that there was no turning point.
Now, like all other noble prisoners, he can only stay quietly in these cells, waiting for the Duke of Gawain Cecil to summon him one day and give a definite result.
There was a commotion from the cell next door.
Baron Sunderland raised his head and saw his "prisoner" Viscount Trier who was locked in the same room as him also raised his head. The two listened to the movement in the next cell, and looked at each other after a while, helplessly. Shaking his head wryly.
"It's the ones captured from Rock Fortress," Viscount Trier said with a wry smile. "It seems that they haven't adapted to the 'rules' here."
"It was the same when we first started," Baron Sunderland also responded with a wry smile, "Listen, they asked the guards to salute them, and asked for red wine and pillows, and even emphasized the issue of ransom... I haven't heard this for a long time Talk."
The people living in the cell next door were just locked in a few days ago. They came from Rock Fortress. Baron Sunderland once thought that these people had escaped the pursuit of the Cecils and returned to their respective territories, but now Only then did they realize that they just hid in the fortress to the north.
These new "prisoners" brought shocking news to the noble prisoners in the prisoner-of-war camp. According to their description, the Rock Fortress has fallen under the onslaught of the Cecils, and the legendary fortress persisted for two days. arrive.
Even according to some accounts, the real attack only lasted about half a day, and the two days included the time the Cecils had set up camp.
Baron Sunderland has lived here for forty-six days, and he has successfully adapted to and accepted the current situation, but it is clear that those who have just come in still need a period of buffer before they can understand the situation.
After the commotion in the cell next door finally ended, Viscount Trier asked, "What do you think Duke Gawain Cecil wants?"
"Perhaps it is the unconditional allegiance of all the nobles in the southern border, just like allegiance to the king," Baron Sunderland said of his speculation, "We can already see that he is actually promoting this war from beginning to end, and he obviously wants to Taking back the east, west and south borders that belong to us will become the Principality of Cecil again."
"...The Principality of Cecil," Viscount Trier was silent for a moment, and sighed, "After he didn't ask for the ransom for a long time, that's what I thought."
Baron Sunderland muttered, "It could be worse..."
Viscount Trier wanted to ask what the other party meant by "worse", but before he could speak, the sound of military boots stepping on the concrete floor interrupted him. The cell door opened, and the man in the magic armor The Cecil soldier stood at the door and said in an indifferent tone: "The Duke wants to see you."
Baron Sunderland and Viscount Trier suddenly raised their heads, and looked at each other in surprise and surprise:
After waiting in fear and confusion for so long, is that Cecil Gawain finally going to summon the nobles of the southern border? !
…
In Cecil City, in the lounge next to the large conference hall of the Government Affairs Hall, Gawain was waiting leisurely, and next to him were Hetty who was standing quietly and Amber who was not at all quiet.
"Hey, hey, do you think those nobles will be persuaded by you?" Amber glanced at the stack of documents on the table next to her, and couldn't help leaning towards Gao Wen, "These things are almost fatal to them. hey"
"Is it okay to pay attention to the rules and etiquette?" Hetty frowned and couldn't help but said, "This is in the government affairs hall, you must at least be conscious..."
Hu Po put her hips on her hips, and said plausibly, "I was paying attention, didn't you see that I even came in through the door just now?"
Occasional quarrels between the two were commonplace. Gao Wen ignored them and said calmly, "Persuasion? I have no intention of talking to them, and the choice is not in their hands."
"To be honest, in this case, why don't you just send them all to the mine, dig stones until they die, and then pull them out and let them 'voluntarily' give up their noble privileges," Amber said puzzled. , "Anyway, their territory has been completely occupied by you, their army has also been defeated by you, and even their people have been imprisoned in your cell..."
Gawain shook his head with a smile, then looked at Hetty: "Hetty, please explain to her."
Hetty glanced at Amber helplessly. Although she didn't want to deal with the shame of the elves, the elder still wanted to listen: "The population migration and new city construction projects proposed by the ancestors are underway. Currently, Horsman City, Leslie City, The transformation and construction of Gelen City and Kant City are entering a new stage, but as the population continues to concentrate and new decrees continue to be implemented, resistance from various places is gradually emerging.
"The three areas of Leslie, Glenn, and Kant are in better condition, and the biggest resistance comes from the Hosman area, as well as almost all the old aristocratic territories outside these four new cities.
"The influence left after the collapse of the old nobles is still there, and it is quite troublesome. Many local rich peasants still have doubts about the new lords. A considerable number of local scholars and businessmen are still supporting the old lords, or simply the old lords. As the lord's 'private family', it is very difficult for the second-level government affairs department to recruit people in those areas, and at the same time, commercial transformation has also encountered considerable obstacles.
"In the area of Pepo in the west and around the area of Carroll in the north, some exiled knights and noble soldiers have been transformed into bandits. They dare not approach the Cecil Corps station, but they will frequently harass the countryside. Due to the fact that the Cecil Corps The manpower is limited, and the strangling of these exiled knight bandit groups is not satisfactory. What's worse, some exiled knights in the northwest region are in contact with Luan City, and they may be transformed into the armed forces of Luan Cathedral."
Amber's eyes widened: "There are also exiled knights and noble soldiers?! Aren't they all killed or captured!?"
"70,000 people, running around on the plains, there will always be some who slip through the net," Gao Wen shook his head, "And the 70,000 people that Hosman pulled up at the beginning could not be the entire army of nobles, each noble must have at least Leave a few gatekeeper knights and soldiers in your own castle, right? After the news of the defeat of the noble coalition army was sent back, the more alert knights who stayed behind almost ran away immediately, and they became exiled knights."
"It's such a trouble..." Amber felt dizzy when she heard this kind of thing, "You can take down the southern border in a few days, but it turns out that maintaining order is more troublesome than taking down the entire southern border..."
"Government itself is more difficult than occupation," Gao Wen squinted at Amber, "It only takes me a second to pull you off the window sill, but it's been more than a year, don't you still jump out of the window and enter the house?"
Amber: "... Hey, I provoked you..."
Gao Wen ignored Amber's protest, and just said to himself: "These troubles we have encountered are indeed very difficult, and if some of them are not handled properly, it may even cause our new order to go backwards and repeatedly. Some of these troubles It's going to last a long time, maybe even a whole generation or two ... but I'm not worried at all."
There were many footsteps coming from the hall next door, Gao Wen smiled and stood up.
"Except for problems such as folk customs and people's hard-to-raise, which must be solved with time, most of the rest of the problems are actually concentrated on those nobles and the traditional order they maintain, and I am the origin of those nobles and the traditional order. .”
The attendants stood at the door of the Great Council Hall, shouting in a loud and powerful voice
"The guardian of the southern border, the pioneer of Ansu, the founder of the kingdom, the ruler of the Principality of Cecil, the Grand Duke of Gawain Cecil arrives"
Sitting at the long table in the large conference hall, with anxious faces, the southern nobles who were whispering a moment ago closed their mouths almost at the same time, as if dozens of pairs of invisible hands were stuck around their necks at the same time. Let these people raise their heads neatly and turn to the direction of the hall door.
They stretch out their necks like dozens of funny ducks.
Gawain, wearing a black Duke's cloak, walked into the hall. He looked at the southern nobles stretching their necks on both sides of the long table. These people had been deliberately left in the prison camp by him for a long time, and some of them had even stayed inside for the longest time. For more than forty days, except for a few people who had just been captured from the Rock Fortress, the rest of the nobles had already been greatly discouraged. The moment he saw their eyes, Gao Wen knew that today's affairs would be easy.
The nobles stood up one after another. Although they had been in jail for dozens of days, the etiquette engraved in their muscle memory allowed them to almost instinctively complete the most standard salutation process.
Gao Wen calmly accepted the salute from these losers, and strode to the head of the conference table. He didn't say any nonsense, but waved to the clerk who followed behind him: "Send it to them."
Holding dozens of documents in their hands, the two clerks began to distribute them to every noble on the scene. The nobles watched this scene in astonishment and curiosity, and even dared to discuss in a low voice that this was different from what they had expected. The "summon" process is completely different, and this "Cecile-style" rule makes them feel at a loss.
The nobles who received the documents immediately turned their attention to the printed matter in front of them: they first noticed the unimaginable uniformity of these printed matters, each of their characters, each line of text, and each segment was extremely accurate. But picky, even the best engraving craftsmen can't carve such a printing plate, but soon, their curiosity about the "printed matter" was distracted by the specific content of the document.
The nobles who saw the contents of the document all showed expressions of astonishment.