The carriage stopped at the gate of the yard, and Reddy said to Pat who was sitting on the driver's seat: "Here we are, this is the master's home."
Then he got out of the car and opened the door of the carriage. Lorist got out of the car with Alisa in his arms, followed by Schward, El, and Sedkamp.
Fatty Shi, Terman, Yuri, and another rental carriage that Steve took also arrived, and the group got out of the car and filed into the yard. Instead of following the group into the house, Pat helped Reddy unload the wagon in the yard and wiped the two Zeno horses with a dry cloth.
Reddy was very surprised and asked, "What's the matter, why don't you go in?"
Pat thought for a while and said, "It was my grandfather's request that I came to find the young master. He told me that no matter whether the young master returns to inherit the territory, I will follow him to protect him, because the only heir of the orthodox blood of the Norton family is Let him alone, no matter what, the young master can't have any accidents."
Reddy laughed: "Brother Pat, it's not that I underestimate you. It's not that you protect him, but he protects you by your side. With the strength of your black iron step, you can protect your master when he is in danger." It’s nice to keep yourself from being a liability.”
Pat gave Reddy an angry look: "There is a saying in our Northland that no matter how vigilant a monster is, it will doze off, and no matter how strong a horse is, it will stumble. I already know that the young master is Black Iron Locke, and Silver Invincibility is amazing. But no matter how powerful the young master is, he is only one person. I just need to silently make a shield by his side. Now I am a black iron, as long as I work hard, I believe I can help you when I am promoted to the silver rank. The young master is quite busy."
"Well said, Pat." At some point, Lorist came to their side: "Boss Kress really asked you to stay by my side?"
Pat nodded calmly: "If you want to go back and inherit the territory, then I will be your personal bodyguard. If you refuse to go back, then I will stay by your side to protect you."
Speaking of this, Pat smiled self-deprecatingly: "But it seems that you have changed more than I imagined, not only in skills, but also in personality. You don't need my protection at all now. Originally, my grandfather and the others Thinking that you must have had a bad time losing contact with your family for so long, it seems they are all wrong."
Lorist nodded deeply: "It's been ten years. It's been so long since I left home in the blink of an eye, and it's been seven years since I lost contact with my family. There's nothing I can't change in order to live. I'm going to eat it if I can have today." A lot of trouble. Come on, Pat, go inside and talk about things back home."
This time, Soderkamp introduced the current situation of the Norton family in more detail. The series of unfortunate events caused the family to lose more than half of their force. Lorist's father was a one-star golden swordsman. Although he was injured in hunting monsters when he was young, his cultivation stagnated, but he was a gold-ranked swordsman after all. His death made the family lose its mainstay. And the death of Lorist's eldest brother made the family lose hope even more. The young master was a knight of the golden rank. He was hit by a poisoned arrow in the back while fighting in the battle, and died of poisoning not long after he got back. As for the third young master, when he was young, he fell into the water and fell ill due to a serious illness and was unable to awaken his fighting spirit. Only then did he encounter a monster who was severely injured and passed away when he fell from the horse in shock.
At this time, Lorist felt very unnatural. He knew that the third young master of the Norton family was sick because the original owner of his body, Little Locke, pushed him down the well due to jealousy when he was young. Little Locke was half responsible for the young master's death, and now that he has inherited this body, he also bears the responsibility.
Sedkamp said that when the third young master met the monster, the family's only family knight with three silver stars was guarding him. Although he fought and killed the monster, he was also seriously injured and is still recuperating. Now the family has only one female knight with one silver star, and she is Andrea Baisha. The daughter of Andre, the deceased family's old knight, grew up with the young master's childhood sweetheart. The master made them engaged, but he never thought that the young master would die in battle before getting married. I don't know if the young master remembers the red-haired girl who has been following the young master.
Loris nodded. The red-haired girl in Little Locke's memory who always stayed with his elder brother was as tough as a boy. She just pulled her braids and was beaten up by her. Painful memories left behind.
Sedkamp said that apart from Miss Baisha, the silver-ranked female knight, the rest of the family are a few black iron swordsmen from the garrison, and a few black iron old men in the castle. The current affairs of the territory are maintained by Miss Baisha, and the old manager Kress retreats behind the scenes because of his age. Therefore, the family hopes that the second young master will go back to inherit the territory and preside over the overall situation.
Pat, who used to be Baron Norton's bodyguard, recounted how Lorist's father was ambushed. At that time, the baron heard that the mountain barbarians were coming down to rob again, so he summoned the cavalry team in the castle, eighteen cavalry, which is the most important mobile force in the family's hands. Including the baron and Pat, there are a total of twenty cavalry. Since he found out that there were more than 50 gangsters in the mountain barbarians who came down the mountain, the baron sent someone to recruit a guard team to go with him, planning to wipe out the gangsters.
The Baron and Pat took a step forward because they were riding horses. When they arrived at the destination, they found that the bandits were unprepared. They calculated that the time was running out, so they planned to launch an attack first. When the guards arrived and saw the situation, they would naturally follow. Attack, under attack from both sides, these mountain barbarians will definitely be wiped out.
Pat said that he had advised the baron that it was better to wait for the garrison to arrive before launching an attack, but the baron refused to listen and insisted on launching an attack. It was relatively smooth at the beginning, and the mountain man was caught off guard, but seeing that the baron and the others were few in number, their morale was boosted again, and they fought for a while. If the defense team appeared at this time, the mountain barbarians would definitely be beaten to pieces. But the garrison team could not be waited for left, and the garrison team could not be waited for right. Seeing that the casualties of his subordinates were getting heavier, Lord Baron was also anxious, and rushed to fight in person regardless of his illness. At this moment, the savages cheered. It turned out that the savages had more than 50 reinforcements. The baron couldn't bear it anymore. , while all the family cavalry died in battle.
It was only after Pat came back that he realized that the garrison hadn't left the town at all. Pat was furious, and went straight to the garrison's camp alone with his sword, slashing and wounding the garrison captain Malte. Now the guards quit, and more than a hundred guards surrounded the castle to ask Pat to come out. Miss Baisha and the old manager Kress finally settled the matter with their years of prestige. So when Sedkamp was ordered to come to Morente City to look for Lorist, the boss sent his grandson Pat to escort Sedkamp all the way, and also to prevent him from staying in the territory looking for guards. team trouble.
Following the narration by Sodkamp and Pat, everyone realized that the situation facing the Norton family was not ordinary difficulties, but very, very difficult. The first problem is the tide of monsters in winter. Every winter, the monsters on the wasteland will go to the territory in groups to look for food. destroy. If the winter wolves were in packs, even castle estates and towns would be attacked.
The second problem is the mountain barbarians. The Norton family's territory is in the extreme northern wilderness. To the north is the endless black mud swamp, to the west is the Blade's Edge Mountains, and to the west of the Blade's Edge Mountains is the sea. The salt used by the people in the North is to go through the Blade's Edge Mountains to the sea, and then come down from the cliff to bring back the sea water to boil the salt, which is very laborious and troublesome. Therefore, the price of salt in the north has always been high. To the south is the Black Forest and the wasteland hills, which is also the only passage from the family territory to the outside world, connecting with other nobles' territories. To the east is the Demon Dragon Mountain Range, which is full of countless high mountains and dense primitive jungles. The mountain barbarians are active in this stretch of hundreds of miles of mountains.
It is said that the origin of the mountain barbarians is the descendants of the human race who fled into the mountains in the dark ages to find a place to survive. They lived in the mountains for hundreds of years and lost contact with the outside world and degenerated into a savage tribe, worshiping primitive totems. Ru Mao drinks blood, and the weak eat the strong. Although he has some contact with the outside world, he is still known for his unreasonable, rude and arrogant personality.
When the first generation ancestors of the Norton family became the lords of this wasteland, the mountain barbarians began to get entangled with the Norton family. From time to time, they went down the mountain to plunder and rob everything. They are more cunning, cruel and difficult to deal with than Warcraft . The Norton family once expanded and set up more than ten reclamation villages on the wasteland, all of which were attacked by the mountain barbarians and suffered heavy casualties and property losses, and finally had to abandon these reclamation villages one by one. Like this time, the reason why Lorist's father, the baron, went out sick was because the mountain barbarians attacked the only pasture in the family's territory and took away a large number of cattle, sheep and livestock.
The third trouble for the Norton family is the territory garrison. Now the family territory has a total population of more than 5,000 people, of whom more than 3,000 live in a town called Beiye Town, which is also the only town in the family territory. Most of the people who live there are family members of the garrison and survivors of soldiers who served the Norton family. They occupy two-thirds of the arable land in the safe area of the territory, and only hand in one-tenth of the harvest every year, and nothing else .
Back then, Norton's ancestors had vigorously recruited refugees to buy slaves and release them as citizens because of the large territory and sparse population in order to develop the territory. The leaders who were willing to join the garrison were treated well. Although the salary was not high, the family was exempted from labor service, poll tax and other miscellaneous taxes, and the family members were given the fields, as long as they handed over one-tenth of the harvest of the fields every year.
Even as lords, the Norton family still has to fulfill their obligations to the Cresson Empire as imperial nobles. In addition to sending troops to fight when the empire needs it, they also have to pay field tax for their own territory, which is the land they cultivate in the territory. A tenth of the harvest is to be handed over to the empire. At that time, other nobles in the empire basically set the harvest tax on the land at 50%, plus various taxes such as poll tax, transaction tax, city entry tax, fishing tax, firewood tax and salt tax, etc. To barely survive is already a merciful lord.
The Norton family's generous treatment of members of the garrison means that they receive no benefit from the families of these garrison members other than the imperial field tithes. At the beginning, it didn't attract many people to join. After all, becoming a defensive player means risk, and the tide of monsters every winter is a big test. However, with the stability of the territory and the expansion of the safe area, interested people have discovered that there are many benefits to being a member of the garrison team, so becoming a member of the garrison team has become a hot trend in the territory. The Norton family was very happy at first, but as time passed, they realized that something was wrong and began to get out of control.
Generally speaking, people in Galintia are used to letting their children live independently after they grow up. However, these families who became garrison members did not separate their families. Seven or eight brothers and sisters still lived together after they got married, just to enjoy the treatment of the family members of the garrison team members. Brothers and sisters distribute fields.
The Norton family only regretted it at this time, but the head of the family at the time considered that the garrison team had also made great contributions to the family territory, and only limited the number of fields distributed to the family members of the garrison team members. Beidi can barely support a family of three. I thought this would limit the momentum, but unexpectedly, what the garrison members really value is their family members’ exemption from hard labor and various miscellaneous taxes. Relying on their identities as family members of the garrison members, they wantonly fished and hunted in the territory, boiled salt and smuggled them Instead of handing over their income, their lives are more nourishing than the Norton family.
After more than a hundred years, the members of these garrison teams have been retired by their fathers and replaced by their younger brothers, making the number of members of the garrison team a hereditary occupation. In Beiye Town, there are more than one hundred civilian families of small and medium size. The small ones have 10 to 20 people, and the big ones have 30 to 40 people. They have become a local force that cannot be lost in the family territory.
The Norton family thought about dealing with the garrison, but they had to give up because they were too deeply involved with the family. Like the maids in the family's castle manor, they are basically the daughters of these commoner families, and many of the family soldiers recruited by the family in the territory are also family members of these guards. If there is any trouble, the defense team will get the news soon. If the Norton family wants to use force, the result is likely to be two defeats, and the Norton family will become a joke in the aristocratic circle.
Because of these concerns, the settlement of the defense team has been delayed. If Patriarch Norton is strong, as long as the bottom line of the defense team is not touched, that is, if the treatment of the defense team members and their families is not cancelled, the defense team will still bow their heads and be willing. Follow orders. When Lorist's father and elder brother were there, the defense team obeyed orders very well, and even obediently obeyed the elder master's orders to send out people to accompany him to fight everywhere. But the eldest young master died in battle, and the old master was seriously ill. After the third young master took over, the defense team began to obey others. For example, when the third young master encountered a monster while patrolling the territory, several guards who followed him ran away immediately, and even the third young master He fell off his horse and died without anyone looking after him.
Especially last year, when the garrison refused to obey the order, the family's cavalry was annihilated, and the baron was seriously injured. He even sent people to besiege the family's castle even more aggressively, demanding to hand over Pat, the head guard who injured their captain. In a sense, such behavior is like rebellion. The Norton family lost their family force and had to compromise. Solving the territorial defense team has become an imminent and major issue for the next Norton Patriarch.
The fourth problem is territorial disputes. The southern border with the Norton family's territory is the Viscount of Kenmes. It is reasonable to say that the northern land is mostly wilderness. It doesn't matter if there is more or less, but the Morgan Hills, the land where the dispute occurred, is the Norton family. The location of the copper mine is the only source of income that the Norton family can sustain at present. How could they be willing to hand it over to others? For this reason, there have been several armed conflicts between the two sides, and Viscount Kenmes suffered a great loss.
In fact, the Viscount Kenmes didn't take it seriously. The territory of the Norton family was designated by the founding emperor of the Krissen Empire. On the map of the canonized territory, the Morgan Hills are clearly within the territory of the Norton family. . The territory of the Viscount Kenmes was conferred by the second prince who belonged to the nobles of the Northland five years ago. I don't know whether it was careless or intentional, and the Morgan Hills were assigned to the Viscount. It stands to reason that the second prince should send someone to re-distinguish the boundaries between the two sides. As a latecomer, Viscount Kenmes must back down. But I don't know why the second prince reconciled with each other. He only said that the two parties should negotiate and resolve it by themselves, and he didn't care about it anymore. As a result, the two sides moved their swords and guns, and the Norton family won a big victory.
Now that the Norton family is in decline, Viscount Kenmes has started to toss again, especially after one of his cousins became the mistress of Duke Lukins of the Northland the year before last, and somehow got in touch with the Duke, and he is even more confident. He dug a mine on the other side of the Morgan Hills and started mining the copper resources belonging to the Norton family. And the Norton family can only endure this tone and ignore it.
If Viscount Kenmes knew the real situation of the Norton family, he might annex the Norton family's copper mine immediately. Without the income from the copper mine, the Norton family's finances would soon go bankrupt. This is the fifth trouble of the Norton family, which can also be said to be a financial crisis.
Ten years ago, although there was such a thing as a garrison in the territory of the Norton family, the family was not those nobles who lived by searching for the people. The team went to Morente City to trade, and the income from coming and going every year was extremely considerable. At that time, there were as many as 200 family cavalry, well-equipped, and the Norton cavalry was famous in the Northland.
But the good times didn't last long. Seven years ago, the caravan led by Lorist's third uncle was robbed by robbers and all members died in battle, causing the family to lose the most important financial income. The prince fought in all directions, and there were only dozens of family cavalry left when the young master died in battle to escort the body back, and more than half of them were disabled. In order to support the family's accumulation over the years, more than half of it was consumed.
What added fuel to the flames was the order sent by the second prince, and the ownership of the Norton family was handed over from the Krissen royal family to the Duke of Lukins. If the cavalry and the young master of the family were still there, the baron would definitely refuse to accept this order, even if he had to go to war with the entire northern nobles, because the Norton family was loyal to the royal family of Christen, not a certain prince.
When the young master was still there, the second prince tried to win over him in every possible way. Unexpectedly, as soon as he died in battle, the second prince would turn his face and deny him. Not to mention the lack of compensation and rewards, he even handed over the Norton family to the Grand Duke Lukins as an object. , which is both ironic and sad for the Norton family. But at that time, all the nobles in the North belonged to the second prince, and the Norton family was powerless to resist, so they had to acquiesce to the reality.
The Duke of Lukins is not the royal family of Christen. Not only does he have to collect land tithes on his noble territories, he also has war taxes, blood taxes, territory preservation fees, etc., which add up to almost half of the income of a noble territory. . It's okay for other nobles, but it's difficult for the Norton family. They can't collect these additional taxes on the garrison and their families. On the contrary, they have to pay fees equivalent to three tenths of their land income. There is also a copper mine that maintains a balanced income, and the family has long been in a financial deficit.
Even though the war is over, instead of reducing the collection, the Duke has added a restoration tax, which means that the collection of this tax is to prepare for the restoration of the Krissen Empire. As for when it will be prepared, it is unknown, maybe it will It will be collected for decades and hundreds of years. Now that the main roads of the family's external communication are all on the territory of the Duke of Lukins, the Norton family had no choice but to bear it once again.
After Sedkamp and Pat finished introducing the situation of the entire Norton territory, everyone was silent, even Terman, who advocated that Lorist should go back and inherit the territory, was silent. This is obviously a fire pit, who jumped Whoever goes in dies.
Fatty Shi asked Pat and Suedkamp: "Did your family ask Locke to arrive before he can inherit the territory?"
Pat replied: "The master passed away in March this year. It took us more than three months to rush from the Northland to Morente City. Because the road was not smooth, we encountered robberies, slave traders, territorial conflicts, etc., and there were many detours." It’s a long way. It took more than a month to find the young master in Morente City. Before leaving, my grandfather told me that if the young master wants to go back and inherit the territory, he must arrive before March next year. If we don’t If we go back, the family can only choose one of the children born to the master and the maid as the heir of the family."
Fatty Shi nodded: "That's fine, the matter is not too urgent, you should stay with Locke first, and observe for yourself which choice is really good for Locke. At the same time, let Locke think about it, he should choose In what direction is the road to go in the future. Let’s do this first.”